Still Life with Grocery Store Sushi

I tried once to die
By apple seed. And later
I tried to die
By mousetrap. And later:

Death by Cinnamon Toast Crunch,
Death by Dance Dance
Revolution, death
By falling asleep in the bathtub

When no one was home.
One time I thought
I wanted to die
But gave myself a haircut

Instead, and afterwards
Felt okay. Rumor has it
I didn’t even want to be born.
I lived ten months

In the womb, content
A suckling. Content now to eat
Prepackaged sushi alone
In my car in the grocery store

Parking lot. But I don’t think
I ever truly wanted death.
Not like you did, so much
You died twice. The first time

You came back, like an artichoke
Or a cartoon cat, wiping
Foam from the corners
Of your mouth, propped

Whitely up on pillows. It’s been a long
Life, already. Long and beautiful
And terrible and strange, like a worm
That lives along the ocean floor.

We are all as blind as that.
We are all as ugly.
But still sometimes we get
To thinking about beauty

As something we deserve simply
By virtue of waking up
Every day and not murdering
Someone. I am rootless

Now as a pair of sheep
In my long adulthood. I write
Thank you notes, I lug my trashcans
Back up onto the curb

Every Friday night. The second time
You got it right.
It still baffles me. I got so used to you
Being the kind of person

Who never completely dies.
And then, one day, you just did.

Red Milk

Lately I’ve been waking up
To a horse in my front yard.
Is it a coincidence
The way I love

Has also often been likened
To a horse? They say it has
Two black eyes that swallow everything
They lay upon, like cloaks. A sweet

Tooth for days. They say
The sky is always
Reflecting on its flanks. The kind
Of mane that’s prone to give

A dewy little shimmy. I realize
I could probably live
For years, if only I could cut
Its throat and hang

It upside down from a tree, let
The blood collect in a tin bucket, salt
And dry the flesh the right way.
Even my dog could live. It’s true

That one can water a garden
With horse blood, in the instance
That all the wells dry up
In an apocalyptic event. I could never

Bring myself to do any of this, though.
I’m too sentimental. Today
I sat on the café’s sunny patio, drinking
Champagne and sweating

Through my silk
Blouse, the hair on the top
Of my head hot
As metal, and I cried

Over a picture my father had posted
On Facebook: my childhood
Home, up to its windows
In snow so clean it literally

Glowed. I am counting down
The days until baseball season.
All the families sitting
Together on benches, consumed

For a few hours with a single
Identical hope, faces streaked
In red or blue paint. I keep
My pockets full of starlight

Mints, for this new beast
That tramples my flowerbeds.
Just the sheer size
Of it! The glisten! It gives

Me a hope I haven’t felt
In years. I wish I could
Go back there sometimes, back
To the easy place where I tossed

A Frisbee to a dog and sang
Songs about the lawn chairs
Beneath a small, benevolent sky. Back
To where the Earth wasn’t

Dying. It’s not that I don’t still feel
Joy. I do. Sometimes I feel so much of it
At once it’s like choking backwards
On a red velvet cupcake.

MEG FREITAG was born in Maine. She has an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin, where she was a James A. Michener Fellow and finalist for the 2015 Keene Prize for Literature. Her first book, Edith, was selected by Dorianne Laux as winner of the 2016 BOAAT Book Prize and was published by BOAAT Press in Fall of 2017. Her poems can be found in Tin House, Boston Review, Indiana Review, Black Warrior Review, and elsewhere.