Gunfight

“What can I do? I can only breathe in deeply. I can only bellow in a church that is deep inside myself. I can only leap for joy in my sacred inner caves and ring out the message: I am alive. I woke up again. I might as well be sprouting leaves, I might as well be covered in little clams.”

— "Little Weirds," Jenny Slate

The thing about uranium

is that it is the heaviest

naturally occurring element.

The thing about unidentified aerial phenomena

is that one to five percent of sightings

still remain unexplained long after

investigation.

Both have a markedly increased prevalence

in New Mexico.

(a) You are an immortalized godhead

within the mirror of my closet door.

(b) You are a common cellular

accident, barely lapped up

from the sea of chance.

Both things

can be true.

Left on Ohio, right

into me.

The average queen-sized throw

blanket weighs about four to five

pounds, and retains five to ten degrees

of body heat. You’re shy a couple

bucks, but made me sweat

like a whore

in church.

In the morning you’d probably report

on my restlessness, and how my sleep

makes the sheets smell

of ozone.

You are a breeze

with teeth, a window

looking into another one, and

nearly every breed of bird

and blade.  

We could not

resist each other’s

shine.

Somewhere, in a universe

alongside this one, I didn’t

memorize you in self-defense.

I didn’t kneel to the shape you

made in me. I didn’t

split myself open

on the sharp edge

of a loss which

was never

mine.  

You dissected me

to observe, weigh,

and name

each of my softest

parts.

There is a difference between

being seen and

being felt. 

There is a difference between

a sown field and

a fallow one.

But what is the difference

between a sacrifice

and an offering?

I only know that death

is good for the soil.

So I guess I don’t mind feeding

the hungry from time

to time.

The apparatus requires

endless fodder, I

know. And yours

begs

like I do.

My hands smell of

iron and earth. I’m sure

you noticed, unimpressed

and unconvinced of the mess

of me. This morendo razed

me well.

Magnetic until the very

end, indeed.

Just as you wish, I’ll

feel the pull of you

from a thousand miles

away.

I’ll believe

all things

are true.

How many doors

have I forgotten to lock?

Which monsters dream

of me?

- Cierra Lowe, April 2026