Thomas Osatchoff

Remember to cut kites beyond your lack.
Remember to undress first then flout cracks
like a one-year-old babbling and try, just try
to fly a tree float fingers or some other limb
or natal lore near places you've never been before
so as to soar into the carousel core of connection

again once you've forgotten, once you've forgotten
the dandelions you brought home for your mom
on the first day of play-school. Ray-school. Growing
sunbeams in the cracks of the driveway, you stopped
to notice them. So you dismembered at least eight
to remember eight's the largest number grass stain gain

without a merry-go-round care for reverse mortgages
or DNA damaging nitrites in your half-eaten lunch
smushed out of sight in your bag with the lush flower
aping weeds hushed soft and smelly after a week
forgotten in their secret spot your mom finally found.
She said something to you and you went outside to play

before bed with the imported red ants in the driveway
cracks. Once you've lost all this try being on your own
so you can find yourself again unabandoned: sown
begotten without fear float fingers or some less dim limb
near interest-based leverage painting a picket fence
night in the sparrow punctured electrical outlet white.