Controlled Burn

Not our usual accusals,
flung coffee, wailing; but
a swailing to rebalance
our marital ecosystem, darling.
Let’s turn invasive species to ash,
spark regrowth from dead embers.

For my mood is the color of coral, the hard red eggs
of the female lobster sunk in a murky tank,
her claws cinched by rubber bands.

Or maybe, like starfish in dark oceans
who’ve severed their own limbs
to escape predators, we could regenerate
what we’ve lost, sink into a sweet sand bed,
sing each other’s names: beloved
Brittle Star, Blunt Arm Star.

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Jody Winer’s poetry has appeared in Epoch, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Massachusetts Review, Open City, The Cimarron Review, phoebe, Poet Lore, South Carolina Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, The Atlanta Review, and elsewhere. Her chapbook, Welcome to Guardian Angel School, was published in 2020. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and MacDowell fellow. Raised in Florida, she lives in New York. She has worked as a librarian, writer, and dog wrangler.