by Mukethe Kawinzi

Italian thistle has tithed most
to my cuttings these last days.

In later Junes, rough touch
recalled, I’ll spoor less bare.

I ask Charles Darwin: come
eye the goats with me, and how
they eat spined things.

Charles Darwin picks up a rock. He tells me the present is the key to the past.

I want Charles Darwin to know I know something. I want Charles Darwin to
remember me. I speak to him of beetles that bore earth. I tell Charles Darwin
that we have rollers here. I say to him: Charlie, I’ve watched them roll dung
face down/ass up. Do not question me for using 2 Live Crew as a way to
Charles Darwin’s heart. I have learned, in life: there is no slicker way to charm
whitefolk than to let them into blackness. Charles Darwin finishes the lyric.
Charles Darwin and I squat into the royalled ripgut, and count morning
spiderwebs.

______________________________________________________________________

Mukethe Kawinzi is a shepherd who has appeared in Obsidian, Puerto del Sol, and HOBART. She is the author of saanens, nubians, one lamancha (Winner, 2022 Quarterly West Chapbook Contest) and rut (2022 Ghost City Press Summer Series). She herds goats on the open range in coastal California.