for he wasn’t yelling at me. He was yelling at death
which knits a scarf to close the throat,
trips the foot on a hike up the canyon,
scrambles the body in the brambles of the briar
patch, drowns the swimmer off the yacht, jams
up the traffic so the careless driver doesn’t
notice the red lights until the car horn blares.
He wasn’t angry with me. He was apoplectic
about six months spent navel-gazing.
With 12 discrete assistants, he shouldn’t have
to search for someone accountable. He wasn’t
coddling me. He was asking for me to collaborate.
Cat Dixon is the author of What Happens in Nebraska (Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2022) along with six other poetry chapbooks and collections. She is a poetry editor with The Good Life Review. Recent poems published in Thimble Lit Mag, Poor Ezra’s Almanac, and Moon City Review.