—after Georgia O’Keeffe

consider that the midwest never cared whether you liked it.

consider that a salmon will never remember you setting it out
in the cold stream, that algae do not have eyes to have ever
seen your eyes gazing, you touch the water and it touches you back
but the sea is a wild thing.

consider that the northwestern corner of what we call the continental united states
feels no attachment to your body, but rather to the act of your body
decaying along its fringes, the act of your body
as soil. consider this is how it would prefer you.

consider a girl as turquoise rush
who watches the icicles with the same intent,
who waits for the lilac bushes to burst
who takes a fraction of lake into her hands
ten thousand times each summer

consider the slick leaves on your parent’s street
and how they do not consider you.

and isn’t it, if we’re being honest with ourselves,
the way that nature clangs against us like we are
fistfuls of discordant bells
that makes us love it so

that makes us curl up in it
to name it home.