WHY IT CAN BE SO HARD TO SAY WHAT YOU MEAN

The swimming deer’s
head, covered in white butterflies,
becomes “swan.” Weaned

off the teat, words expand
their palates, eat
what they can reach. Let’s say

what’s imagined is real
in mendacious ways.
Bird agleam, gulping leeches.

Reflection, yes, a bright stain.
To startle such a pretty hood away
might reveal the head

gone or wildly changed.
Let’s say you name your
angel “Loss” and the schism

is no barrier. Just a gloss.
And the being covered in beings
glides downstream.

Gabrielle Bates's debut collection, Judas Goat (Tin House, 2023), was named a Best Book of 2023 by NPR and Electric Lit and a finalist for the Washington State Book Award in Poetry. Originally from Alabama, she is currently based in the Pacific Northwest, where she works for Open Books: A Poem Emporium, co-hosts the podcast The Poet Salon, and serves occasionally as visiting faculty for the University of Washington Rome Center and the Tin House Writers' Workshops. You can find her poems in the New Yorker, Ploughshares, and Poem-a-Day, among other publications.