something about her parakeet opening
the kitchen cabinets and dying on the tile
floor     in the basement for months standing
water blooms toward the staircase    breeds
tendrils of mold      spores dancing beneath
my bed   in the mornings, morning sickness
lets me lean over the kitchen sink      when
Floorbird was distressed     she laid eggs

beak cutting the soft belly of a cuttlebone
I     purchase pregnancy tests after night shift
one horizon line   where could my baby be
down a bottle of wine     abstain from caffeine
never get COVID     invisible sickness lives
in the soft sponge hospital hallway headache
from lack of sleep lack of knowing what’s in
the locked door basement     a year inside

a wooden cabinet and my body grows bark
we measure mushrooms in chocolate     touch
the headstone in the back yard     weeks with
out sleep forty eight hours    I see double   two
of me   one scrubs black mold from the robin’s
egg blue tub    the latter    she will always see
hunched over the kitchen sink    no hair to
hold back     we are stuck in a loop      there is

Satori Good (they/them) is a queer speculative writer from Kansas. Their Pushcart-nominated poetry and prose appear in Fugue, Does it Have Pockets, M E N A C E, and elsewhere. They are a fiction MFA candidate at George Mason University, where they have served as Editor in Chief of So to Speak. Find them at satorigood.com