daisy fleabane arrives early after winter onslaught of lake effectsnow melt becomes water that feeds wildflowers from the undersidebecomes floodcomes familya cellular structure for secretsthe year is 2020everyone is sick and healingnot everyoneeveryone is sick or healinglives are precious or expendableexpelled, expressed, released, sighedsloughed off to replicate in someone else’s precious or expendable lungsgermination, occupationmonths between vagus nerve and a memory of socialityyou might as well be in MichiganI rolled into a pleasant peninsula seeking safe havenand yes sometimes an invisible cloak fits over my housecaped children walk by carrying plastic pumpkinsI push grass ordinance to edgesa local construction of crimelegal height loweredbrace for tensions with neighborsI mow a tiny strip around the meadowthe pollinator garden tickles the curb with liberated wildflowersfleabane daisies such a startling puff of yellowpink clover right over and dockdead limbs rotting but controlled into compostwe will grow things here, “we are in this together”I’ll post a sign explainingand pray no one callson the roosterwho rushes to elevation to greet the dayor warn of itall day the same bugle meaning something only in his kingdomwhich I happen to live inI surround myself in browndeck stains and elk and mooseof the Michigan flagstate whistle toad songdon’t you know? sun cooksthe shame awaywho else needs to surviveI am trying to answer one questionI measure miles from the arbitrary borderdrive-through pharma for extravials of testosterone-controlled substanceRx sees a criminal queerscrutinizes ID then dispenses a paper bag folded closed and stapled which I tossempty passenger seat sanitize my hands keep drivingfueled by fossilsnorth in Michigan what is a mortgageis it a house of cards a debt meant never to be repaidtoken of achievement in settlement’s shadowam I the last loser in Michigan still bankingon silence and pleasantries to protect mestrangers/neighbors power walk past my ragged lawntheir yards are dull and starve hummingbirds, monarchs, cardinals, and beeshow is that more beautiful?if I stay in lineif I keep my head downif I work harderet ceteraI have held my tail between my legs and sang “grateful”I have been spit on for whose hand I held, harassed for the pants I wore, catcalled for existingI have been slandered by the God Hates Fags familyI studied their church compound on Google Street Viewand saw the Pride center painted in rainbow across the streetI can no longer be placated by the colorful advancement of rightsdepressed to push or pull downno wonderan old ordinance still on the booksbans fortune tellinganother way I am a criminal herebetween that and the forbidden meadowand some other elementsand the privileges I am often permittedI forgot to assemble, paid on time every monthdid homophobia’s work by playing “smear the queer”Sylvia didn’t DIE for me to hang my tail between my legsso I untether from my respectable nestholding the “x” in my hand like a rosaryand like a brickI’m done being good!