we travel too quickly through these houses and hourswe travel thickly like rich black beetles tottering on the edges of tableswe mix up these kinds of images with pockets of irises in the fieldswhere everything is too beautiful like postcards and this isn’t who we are anymore as we snag a small spiderin a glass jar pressing to the top paper black with print we climb into pastel birds without pupils and dance to a small town bandwe leave pencil notes in plastic handle bags under tires – metal wrenches on street cornerswe stretch and recede the muscles under the skin under the sun and wear straw hatswe mend broken strings hanging from loose zippers – touch in passing lips red with pressing up against soft wood on the side of the dirt roadlaying lines down like a centipede’s legs – we have gone through the shells of these legsand laid down next to them –felt them touch our skin and lay eggs on our tongues –more than once – more than twice – and the eggs have hatched and we have swallowed them again Robin Powlesland is an honors graduate of Mills College of Oakland, California, English/Creative Writing program. She received her MFA in writing from the California College of Arts in San Francisco. She has also been a graphic production artist, tutor and freelance author and editor. Having taught English in the Bay Area, New Mexico and Thailand, she is proud to be currently teaching writing at UNM-Taos. Her manuscript verbs without a past was a Finalist for Omnidawn’s 2010 chapbook contest and she is the author of Double Shot Straight (Cowboy Press, 2007).