The new year rattles in
like an electric train,
baying at seven hundred volts.
Last night I dreamed I was a bat
in Polish caves lined with salt,
or dizzy against obsidian.
I slice open a garlic bulb
to its pungent heart.
I put a dollop of snow in the pot.
The grass is fragrant under its coat,
the horse-chestnuts mumble against one another.
A good evening to be alone
in a body full of so many long corridors.
I can feel the seam of myself—the scar
on my belly—hot and chapped,
the smoke alarm sings
to my sizzling lima beans.
I want to keep dancing, learning languages.
House, body, settling themselves loudly
in half-light veined with the bare limbs of trees.