1. a nuthatch brings his wife to the potted bleed­ing hearts my mother gave me. it hangs on the front porch, vibrant red blooms beside the glass door. i watch in wonder as they prepare the nest so close to the domi­cile of another crea­ture. i smile to myself, think­ing they must feel we offer pro­tec­tion. later, i am damned to a life of sitting up all night in the old wicker chair, relo­cat­ing the black snake twined around the porch column again and again, his coiled black body deter­mined to move in for the kill.

2. alex laughs at the most inap­pro­pri­ate moments, eyes like jewels, sparkling as his mouth recounts the story of his father vio­lent­ly beating him with a flash­light. maybe the laugh tempers the ache. i stifle his laugh­ter with my hand, my fingers over his mouth; my father is in the next room and alex snuck in through the window again. i hold him close in all the places he’s been hurt the most. except the hurt of our stub­born closed mouths twenty years later, refus­ing to speak to each other.

3. in addi­tion to chang­ing the tem­per­a­ture of the planet, humans are affect­ing the sounds in the sea. our noise has reached the murky depths, inescapable even by crea­tures who may never come into contact with us. sci­en­tists study­ing the red sea have picked up fewer trans­mis­sions of whale song. imagine, unable to find resplen­dent soli­tude, never singing again.

4. the day after i incant my ode to death aloud, the vul­tures come. they’ve come before, but only to roost and watch. in the midday glint of sun­light, right before our eyes, they dive and crash into the netting pro­tect­ing our flock. hopping dev­il­ish­ly from branch to bough to escape our broom swats, ripping at the net with their talons. one turns to face me, glides down to the ground before me, making full eye contact and issuing a low hiss; after all, it was i who sum­moned him.

5. some­times you hold the gift of ter­ri­ble words, bloom­ing like corpse flowers in your ears over and over. i remem­ber my father sitting me down to talk, the stitch in his voice as he handed me the word—terminal. so fath­om­less a gouging, cutting a river through my exis­tence. i don’t remem­ber speak­ing to anyone else that day, simply forcing my foot­steps to an away, a place of silence. but that evening, alone under the stars, for the first time in a decade, i spoke to god.