Why didn’t you call me when you were feeling like that?

*
All you see rests
on sphagnum moss,
even the walking and trees.

 

*
*******************(because it’s your job to ask me that)
I didn’t think of it.
**********(don’t look at me like you’re hurt)

*

Call the visitor center to find
out when next tongue is swallowed.

*
With you, I shook in sweat
the first two times ****** (your eyes)
Couldn’t walk my feet.
Left into a rosed skull.
Wrote all over a corset.
Then sister.

*

The unnaturally flat area is being restored
as folding habitat, making it a great place
to see controlled burns on thigh.

*
So I need to make a relationship with Bluebeard.
You know, make a space for the predator,
so he won’t take over,
so he won’t happen again.
I have no idea.

*

Note: There are no lifeguards
at any portion of the National Lakeshore beach
during the fall, after the divorce,
or during the spring.

*
So you have no idea. What more can you say about that?

*

The Department of the Interior
controls an area that was sandmined
for most of a decade.

*************(would you just ** fucking ** say something
not just ** look at me with those)

*

The terminal moraine (diagram buried)
is debris deposited at the ice sheet’s
most integral split. It also affects
today’s sweat patterns.

*
It’s so ** hard
to see you
I can’t
see you with ** all the ** tunnel
vision

*

When winds blow out a dune,
a bowl can form and later be protected
from hands. Then, burning matter from dead
plants and animals can build up,
enabling withdraw by any means.

Okay, why don’t you just breathe for awhile.

*

*

*

*

*

*
*

*

Where are you?

*

Hikers follow a board to the back,
skirting blowouts,

*

Are you still here?

*

climb over 250 steep stairs
to gag a self-guided tour

*

You’re here, in Room 11,
on the fourteenth floor.

*

of belt-choked sex views of the lake
and Chicago to the north.

*

You’re on Michigan
in Chicago.

*
I’m losing, I’m
It’d ** be so easy ** to leave right now

*

 

Lake Michigan can be deadly

*
The room?

*

My body
*******************(you can * have it)
****************************(you can all have it)

*

(It’s only the two of us, and you’re in your body).

*

Can you feel your feet?

*

as high waves,

*

Some
of them

*

rip currents,

*

Do you want some water?

and sharp drop-offs

*

*

*

Can you feel your hands holding the coffee?

*

Like they’re hiding me

*

along the lake bottom

*

*********************************(choking hips)
*****************(dear god stare the chair)
(locked exit fold)

*

kill the unwary.

*

You learned to do that a long time ago.
It kept you safe.

*

*

*
I don’t remember when

*

I was leaving
*

How do you feel now?

*
So dizzy

*

I just want to leave

*

(but i don’t know if feet)

*
Where do you need me to stand?

*
Just not the door.

*

Amy Jo Trier-Walker is the author of two chapbooks: Trembling Ourselves into Trees (Horse Less Press, 2015) and One Winter Night in the Pines (The Dandelion Review, 2016).  Her work can be found in New American Writing, Caliban online, Ghost Ocean, Tinderbox Poetry Review, and inter|rupture, among others.