Do we keep eating the Valentine's cake
from three days ago?
The cat sniffed the body.
Apparently that's important.
And then swiftly buried.
The child will only see
the empty pen
when she comes home.
Not sure if that's important.
Do we explain the sudden and fragile
to the sudden and fragile?
The cake won't last another day.
Strawberries are not good in January.
No use pretending.
But it's what you asked for:
Strawberries, sliced, fresh
On top of pancakes.
You've been losing so much weight.
I would have brought you the moon to eat
If you had asked it.
All these nights you don't come home.
If only all of your cravings
Were for strawberries in January.
suck the venom from the wound
and I would summon ancient gods
stories, my body craves
stories that only forests now can tell
all other bodies
drained of the words
puncture wounds
conspicuous and silent
my grandmother says
I would have been a water witch
mutilated
my deeper forms
muted
my older prayers
mutated
my original medicine
in the caverns of my body
where the stories once lived
I etch deranged on the walls
who will burn stephen miller at the stake?
alone with the language of rage and snakes
my grandmother says
I would have been a water witch
I am in the kitchen eating figs
Today is the day they decide
Whether to lock my friend away
She is still upstairs getting dressed
I can't taste the figs
Melancholy as pleasure.
Relaxing into the seams of my own spirit,
Savoring words the way ice warms a tongue.
Languid threads of the mind reveal themselves
and return to the fold.
Touch and taste reign supreme.
These are days well-salted.
you're not allowed to die.
there's still so much
we have not. said.
so much
we don't even know
we have. to say.
There's still so much oxygen in my lungs that belongs to you.
rust and oil
we make our bed
refuse and paychecks
we whisper in the dark
gout and empire
we fall in love
in the strangest places
