West Poem by Leah Soderberg

—past the dry-mouthed gooseberry bushes, except everything
was dirtied by rain.
Over again, you paint the magpie
we found on the wilting grass, and I mistake its feathers for wings,

your brushstrokes for a shaking wrist.
Notice: this is so much farther than you ever thought
to find me—my stories from behind your shoulder,
their stiff-footed drumming.

A man cupping a woman's shallow breast on the street corner.
He fears an unpossessible.
Literally—
what we do to another. That we do it until they hurt.