How to adapt How to adopt How to adopt a child from a country that you would never visit unless you adopted a child from the country you would never visit How to tourist How to continent How to dress a child for Halloween when he asks to dress as either a “falafel or blue bird” Discuss How to cry How to collapse How to cry How to collapse Discuss and let me know if you have any questions The people on the lawn are nice They are adaptable The people on the lawn are pretty cool when you don’t get on their bad side You are so funny and adaptable Can I adopt you It’s like you’re singing all the time in the woods The forest is long It is long gone like a stick The forest is wrong It got the wrong answer and you are a very strange woman Maybe it is also a planet that we could name one day The forest is a piece of paper Do you want to touch it I bet you want to smell my long hair That is what we call the nice fall foliage That’s how you wrap your uneaten sandwich in aluminum foil and save it for later The man on the bus was a foil for the woman on the bus That is what we call “the cops” That is what we talk about when something is gone You’re gone Later dude That is what it is to die of the cradle I read it in a book when I had the flu I consumed The women were just falling and falling off Mount Everest They were sick because they were weak They were weak because they were dumb They were dumb because they were painting their cradles under the twisting sun Am I Aryan Is that the new moon No, silly, you are not Aryan You are a Semite Am I a Semite Is that the new new moon No, silly, you are Aryan and that is a photograph of a castle on a hill Where is the photograph It’s sitting on your desk Where is your desk It’s sitting in your apartment That is what we call a continent That is what we call paying the rent when the rent is due That is what we call sonic dissonance Sometimes you can hear it when the flowers are blooming The people on the lawn are troublemakers They are not careful They are living like pigs Ezekiel, don’t hit the flowers with that stick They are not cradles Ezekiel, don’t hit the capitol’s flowers with that forest They are not archetypes If you write it on a piece of paper, you have the advantage of calling it “the new code” If you call it “the new code,” there might be something fearful that will emanate from its encoding The new math was the true math and we learned it We learned it because we are dumb You are so dumb and pretty The endocrine system is something that has no established pathways In that it is like love or being lovable. The truth is that you are not nice and you need to leave this museum at once You are sick so we ask you to stay home from school for 48 hours OMG you are like the nicest person in the world, even nicer than what I had previously suspected Did you once work as a guard here No, silly, that’s not a forest and the woods they are skeptical but honest That is what we call your “baseline blood pressure” If it plummets you will fall into a coma Too bad You weren’t even that nice to begin with Actually, you are like maybe the nicest person in the world and I want to kiss you I have the flu. Whose flu Bird flu No, you have the new flu No, I have the new new flu Whose new new flu You’re already through with this relationship but we just met a few weeks ago Bird flu No, more like shooting a Bengali tiger between his lamentable eyes Too bad We cried Was the tiger Aryan Technically, yes Too bad He died Technically, no can do Frankly, it is hard to see how we even would use the flutes in this composition The family down the street is playing football They have renounced all illness They will not dress as sick birds They will not dress as blue birds or forests They will not dress as tigers They will not dress as mathematics They will not dress as lemons They will not dress as stethoscopes They will not dress as insurance That is what an all-consuming composition and I’m just so glad you decided to include the flutes There’s something mysterious about hiding a house key inside a plastic rock on your lawn It’s like shooting a tiger between his lamentable eyes That is what we call “the cops” When you cut open the rock you get a key When you cut open the key you will not get a forest You guys there were so many babies falling off Mt. Everest it was just almost like a natural disaster or something If you cut open the lawn, you will get a medium sized family and biscuits for breakfast Maybe Unless the wife is depressed If that’s the case, you should ask the husband If he doesn’t make you anything, go to a restaurant The pancakes are good but so is the rice Rice is a treat when served with the flesh of a young tiger Whose flu made you sick The devil’s flu You are incredibly nice and my fantasy is realistic and calm The child was not calm He was a troublemaker Did you once work here as a guard I am afraid of you Maybe I’m not I am afraid of you Actually I’m hoping that you won’t pour poison in my right ear Poseidon is nice I like fish also Possession is nice I want you to possess me Do you want to possess me too They are aquamarine and great swimmers They make the world beautiful but fish are dangerous and should not be trusted Don’t take me I’m yours I wouldn’t eat the fish at this place but I recommend ordering the flesh of a young Bengali tiger Okay You win You are like the nicest person on the planet can I get your phone number Text me Too bad You died The food made me sick but only for like 24 hours I’m pretty sure she worked as a guard at this museum You really need to leave this museum at once

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Sandra Simonds is the author of two collections of poetry, most recently Mother Was A Tragic Girl (Cleveland State University Press, 2012).