i guess we're both failing
a lot of each other's tests
but we keep swinging back
all the same
to wanting

i told you i was shy
about saying your name
shy about hearing
my name from your mouth
told you i missed it
all the same

how much of me is a thing
bumping against your silence
like a bird trying the same window
as though it might become air

now the chimes are out
for spring
and i can't hear chimes
without thinking of you
because i said your eyes
made me think of chimes

every love song is about
something you're not
soon after we met you said
you hoped we'd make music together
i said i was too scared
now i'm scared
you'll never want that again

the blood on the door
is it mine
or yours

tonight i'm a seahorse
i am curled in an egg with a jaguar
i'm snow that doesn't fall
i am an insect swallowed by a frog
i'm in my own spine
i am an apple ripening
i dream like a tumor in my breast
i dream what light dreams
i dream i'm all the teeth in the world
tonight i am one grain of sand
i'm a pearl dissolved in the emperor's wine
i am a silkworm
i'm a hyena mating with a lioness
i am water poisoned by corpses
my dreams are crystal, quartz, a dagger
my dreams are shark's teeth, lost in silt
my dreams are hope, despair, distraction
my dreams are sisters
my dreams are blood
my dreams are vinegar
i am the poison hidden in the queen's ring
i'm a landmine sleeping on the beach
i am the lamb without knowledge of sacrifice
i'm the first taste of a spice
tonight i am venus singing through the dark
tonight i am the sea kissing myself
tonight i am the beginning of a dream that is forgotten
tonight i am the night and its fear
tonight i am every shard of glass
tonight i am wisdom dying before love
tonight i'm someone you remember
tonight i'm a nautilus
tonight i'm dreaming in my lungs

they've been eating cake
take their cake away
let them eat hunger
the upper classes
crave apocalypse
and speak of revolution
as a desirable inevitability
but lay the burden
of building the guillotine
upon the poor
while denying them access
to the forest
and the wood that grows there
the mythic poor
are urged to eat the rich
the mythic rich
the rich that are richer
than the rich who dream
these dreams
if you want us
to eat the rich
invite us into the homes
of your parents
and let us sit at your
christmas dinner
and eat your food
and serve up the horror
of our presence
the good book says
charity begins at home
let us eat you

they are eating the flesh of sirens

in this world, all ghosts are women

i give birth to a caveful of bats

i can see the planet neptune clearly with my own two eyes

this is the language written in wisps of smoke

the sky is filled entirely with ghosts

i cannot burn this city without you

the blood is too pale for my body

i’ve forgotten what hunger feels like

what was the first name for this plague?

the terrible world where there is no madness

the unicorn has been pierced with these arrows and must carry them forever

venus replaces the sun

we anoint a dozen queens to reign over the moon and war with one another through the night

the jackals gnaw the rib bones of isis all through the night

we’re making it, we’re making it through the night again through the night

kiss the angry rash at my throat
where the fires of melancholy
that burn inside me
have licked upward
like a witch burning
a witch
who burns herself
from the inside out

I'm the reason
your son is getting fat
I am everything
you wouldn't want for him
Older, poor, uneducated
white, American
What kind of future
can there be between us?
Every meal I cook for him
and we eat together
has the deep down secret
that you do not know about me
I cannot speak your language
Would you like me better
if I could?
He's far across the sea
letting a foreign woman
fatten him up
and love him
He told me once
that before he left home
you told him to be a good boy
You don't know
that he has been kinder to me
than anyone in my life
How can I thank you
for making him who he is?