I have her legs.
Flaky skin-wood stove induced,
winter pricklies going wild,
and a little bit of mashed potatoes in the thighs.

I saw them hiding
underneath her house coat,
pale and untouched
like the snow covered hill.

fresh coffee drips
into the ***
herbs on the stove
begin to boil
blood stained sheets
are now drying
hands and arms are being washed
with hot water
milk drips
from the breast
a wet chord is coiled
the placenta lays tired
here begins
a new life

It’s something new and rarely real.
It lets her live a life imagined,
a life where rubies join in rows
and diamonds have no flaws.
Tired women with worn soles
can possess a hand of luxury-
a new ring.

I went to him before the storm.
The grumbling thunder echoed
my abnormal heartbeat
as I squeezed the hell out of the steering wheel.

I was with him during the storm.
His white lightning fingers traveled
across pink sky flesh
and my reaction struck and shocked me.

I didn’t want him anymore.

So I watched him at the back door instead,
lighting up in the rain,
taking a hit
or two
or three-
instead of me.

The morning after,
I wash him off my skin.
I peel away the clothes
that I picked up off his floor.
I ***** him out
of my stomach
and rinse him out
of my mouth.
When I finally wash
all of the layers of him away -
it's just me

and I feel so small
underneath all of him.

My sister painted a picture
of the dead fetus she lost,
at the bottom of our toilet.
Every time I flush, I think
about how hard it must have been
for her to.  

I met him in that painting
and he already knew me.
He’d heard my voice singing show tunes in the car,
tasted the sugar in my key lime pie,
and now his porcelain tombstone is in the blue bathroom.
He grew in the darkness of her womb
like a sunflower seed buried deep in the ground.
He was cradled in nourishing fluid, wet soil-
until breaking ground into the light
into a world of people, already grown.
But when babies stop growing,
people already grown-
have to grow a little more.

A clean white sheet-
the left side tucked under his mattress,
one corner held underneath a stack of books.
The other corner tied into a giant knot
around his desk chair.
We crawled inside on our knees,
careful of what we built,
bodies side by side,
our breath was all around us,
warm.

When he turned towards me,
his foot knocked over the books,
the white sheet floated down onto my face,
destroyed.