alpha bets, language gambles, on

land

asks, what’re you so

scared of identity for?

it’s like being scared to say, you’re a blade of grass

in a lawn that’s

gonna get mowed

declare yourself or not, you’ll get cut down & grow back, cut

down & grow back,

cut down & erode

in the colonial rut

unless you ask hey, who imposed these

lawns & do i really

want them?

traded for forests & prairies & organic

garden

futures

the big combine’s coming on down, petroleum products chugging into our lungs & people with many names or no names gotta keep in mind the ground underneath is what really feeds us

the ground was stolen

through lies, deceit, conceit:

how does one handle two, three, four-

faced adversaries?

the tricks

with the knife

i’m learning to do:

splice languages

barter carefully

call it gaia or gravity,

respect the land, mother’s worth