Kaia Sand, poet

BELL CURVE by Kaia Sand -----that shape we strike for sound how we draw it, a line around 'abilities' how the legless man saw the legged how the legged saw him how I map natural disasters, friends nearby how states-in-reds-and-blues is a shorthand who we have sex with who we match our glasses to who we buy with our billfolds how fifty percent of bankruptcy is from medical bills how the lotto winner swore she'd never change how we spin sickness on the roulette wheel of capital, catapulting, catapulting, catapulting how she was called 'feebleminded' because she was pregnant in 1924 how he was called criminal for his long face and bad eyesight who we grieve for whose touch is infectious whose home has what walls whose park is a home is a bed whose ashes fill rusted cans who is not my enemy whose global funeral finds its fans who I grieve for who chased my car with his car who I escaped from who I chase with my daily purchase who was tossing rice at a bride whose body is not claimed who is a boy who wishes to be glamorous and womanish who is a girl who is a girl who is a girl who is a girl who smiles to signify static and such future who names her truck 'snowball' and furies the logging roads whose teeth cut on smoke whose teeth were pulled by country doctors who then moved to the city who then moved his human body to the city whose human face did not smile whose gray smile was not bought whose gray signature claims personhood whose gray is her black and white who was black when she crossed state lines who was white in her long shadow who lives nearby who is not a neighbor that person does not talk to that person whose taxday is evasive whose IRS envelope is annual and heavy whose address is racial whose wall marks the white demographic whose body is perfumed and bedecked whose body is sequined for the complicit mirror whose body is not claimed who learned chess from his father who stands guard by the wrought iron the barbed wire the chain link who demands a callback who is not a mother but a telemarketer who is not a telemarketer when another job is offered who is a mother and a telemarketer and a cousin and a lover of tulips and tobacco who we grieve for who is a sister is a brother is a brother to a brother to a sister a sister to a sister a brother whose human body we recognize in its carbon in its sequins that we recognize faces as beloved or we look down and keep walking that we keep walking who we grieve for who we have sex with who is a suitor who suits us who we love who we recognize that shape we strike for sound whose bodies we claim