From “Nature Poem”

Tommy Pico

You can’t be an NDN person in today’s world

and write a nature poem. I swore to myself I would never
write a nature poem. Let’s be clear, I hate nature

I say to my audience. There is something smaller I say to
myself:

I don’t hate nature at all. Places have thoughts, hills have
backs that love being stroked by our eyes, the river gobbles
down its tract as a metaphor but also about its day. The bluffs
purr when we put down blankets at the downturn of the sun
and laugh at a couple on an obv OkCupid date

and even more stellar, the jelly bean moon sugars at me. She
flies and beams and I breathe.

Fuck that. I recant. I slap myself.

Let’s say I live in NYC. Let’s say I was the first person in my
family to graduate from

college. Let’s say I like watching New Girl on Hulu.

This is the difference:

Some see objects in the Earth, where I see lungs. Sky mother
falls thru a hole, lands on a turtle.

Hole is my favorite band