All place poems belong to the body…

We want words for this blankness where the body lags behind its shadow, our consciousness remote and animal souled. Even when there’s water, we carry unease wherever we go.
(from ‘Tropic of Capricorn’, in Leaves Borrowed from Human Flesh, Etruscan, 2025)

Cacti cursed the skies for piercing turquoise,
saltgrass split the bone that stalled decay…
(from ‘Variations on Hata Kamac’, in Leaves Borrowed from Human Flesh, Etruscan, 2025).

Wind like hot rain, whipping
sand in your mouth. You’re
a volcano, a copper mountain
sprouting from the rock-face, skin coated in
tourmaline, heart racing
backwards into a big bang, bacteria
exploding over the surface of a lake,
no days and no nights but
this blistered surface, the trickle of
sand solidifying, your womb
birthing a stone.
(from ‘Sonata: Valle de Marte’, in Leaves Borrowed from Human Flesh, Etruscan, 2025).