Suppose we were lunar,
ventriloquists and sisters and bed-sharers still:
your mouth would open so mine
did not possess that dry cement quality.

If my toenails were painted,
those fingers would be a shade as pastel.
You sophisticate. We would dangle
our limbs on each other like they hung over a

bridge and could not betray us,
the fall would be interrupted by delicate lace
or that photograph of us in twin hairdos.

And when you hurt me,
I had to scrub your stench from my bones.

thank the humid place between my legs
for being the only ***** of mine not to take it personally
perhaps because we are so safe and secure
you would have to unfold me, trim the weeds around
                                        this secret, secret house  

somewhat abandoned
and no longer the host of such hopscotch games
because once your round thumbprint made me so sore

I do not forget the care you took to separate petals
like eyelashes caught on a dangerous rim
but now it is for defense, such a mechanism
something to prevent intruders, beggars, from barging in
                                  these lips, an alarm system

oh, I do hate to make you leave
but my ****** is the only ***** I have that does not take
everything personally

My hegira, the sweet parasol of which wind takes hold
it walks me in a gingham pattern skirt and
I have enough pills stashed to swallow for months:
a jingly bottle beneath my cleavage
the cups of my bra overflow, is like a Christmas meal.

******* have enough bounce to make me seem happy.
Content, at the least, beginning this journey
to rinse away as a paint stain or something worse
use a sponge to separate and sort all the fragments.

He does not mind: he does not see.
And I still have a piece, one cloudless psalm needs us –
“Of all the things you **** I’m the most empty,”
I say, my body is but a slave for a bundle of nerves.
Turning head left skipping right speak cry *******
to the thought of anything full, even wine jars.

The human form sure can deceive, I am a pink corpse
and corpulence is all my ***** will ever be –
but! I shall discover a new life with chiseled wings
when the breeze comes along to grab my umbrella so.

My hegira gives this hollow spine a tug, a tug.

it is exhausting to love something
too far to touch

& like their body is made of glass
when you see it
you are afraid it will crack

but they insist on making you sore
they know what
you want & what you like

even if it means risking their neck
breaking tonight

& like you are a house of worship
for a quiet man
he has no name but loves

how you make it sound
on the base of your throat, redness

when you know he has cut you &
gave you something only to
take it away

as soon as you see how exhausting
needing it is.

I do not want to be Sylvia Plath anymore.
Her skin cannot fertilize my daises in the oven
or make rosemary’s taste improve
because she has it swaddled in a grave –
the rest has wilted. She has burned and died.

I do not want to be Sylvia Plath anymore
though her words were eloquent
and her waist was very thin. Those insides were
polluted as soon as Hughes discovered them.

Does anyone personify depression?
I would, I think, if I let myself be her again.

Her pretty limbs dangling beyond her head, the
torso conjoined with crimson bars
once metal or iron, once acquainted to
little pollen flakes she swallowed I am sure.
Is anything as pure as a woman above the floor?

I do not want to be Sylvia Plath anymore
but I am sure she is still pure, too.
I bet flowers grow through her throat and exist
in the young body she so hotly removed.

Little beads, baby blooms, figs
writing poems from a nucleus’ dull flicker –
thyme ablaze in patterns of words she has said.  

I once wanted to be Sylvia,
because most of the time I want to be dead.

I am not a poet today, but a ghost.

These are nervous hands that open walls and
create cracks in their foundation:
I apologize, I will use the wood to build your child a treehouse
where he can create a reservoir of his girls’ perfumes
or the happy moments in your unhappy divorce.

If he jumps, I will catch him.
He thinks he is a friend of the wind but I am just a girl
who hates violet bruises but loves pink rogue
nevermind my translucent effigy, he is picked like an apple

saved from garments that bleed if dropped.
I will catch your little man and remember how you wanted to
catch me. A lessening song,
he comes rushing to you, “Father, father.”  
Just like you, a story-teller, “some kind of breeze saved me.”

I am not a poet, but a phantom.
But, no, there is nothing between you and I.
The dead are dead and you and yours are alive.

hung your reflection upon our cave
the moonshine, the tiny peats
you only exist in these natural rags –

it smells like incense and
I am so alone.

Oh, it is awfully high from up here –
a power surge, the slit of my skirt intentionally ripped
and yet no one wants the slightest peek.

The man I love must be entwined in the pleats
or is watching the carnival children with more interest
than he has in creating normal infants with me.

Am I not a woman, not fertile?
But my concern is for a bloodied male –
intestines escaping from an abdomen like his coins.

He has been robbed as I have, an empty wallet
while I have an uninhibited ****.
We whirl alone on the ferris wheel and want to get ill.

For when the ride halts, I could climb the
parachute and die with that defeated man on the side –
just not quick enough to be wanted like a carnie.

Becoming an atypical sort of sideshow,
write wishes with a ride’s ***** on my arm, a lovenote
leave with someone whose faith in which I restore.

You never told me your wish
so I do wonder
if I am making it come true

scavenge for your sweet hands
pin them, bite the freckles
off

I do not just want you
inside of me
I want to digest you and

be
what you want.

The blonde rain
little daisies from angels say
you love me, love me not

you love me like a stone
we did not skip
but sheltered in a wooden box

with
plastic holes as skylights.

wet thighs, wet eyes
gems from each orifice
paid money to open
them wide

but I have an embryo
rose petals inside

attracting maggots so
when someone
loves me it
feels as if I have died.