Your bones are trying to capture me
like a cage –

I supposed I should let myself gape open
the way you do, and swallow the
whole city’s disappointment

as a pill. It turns acid in my stomach,
I imagine the bile is scarlet
but the powder is a faint green –
wrinkled up and dissolved into my drink  

I become the same
locked, aging inside your hay fever.

Until I can plead for you to not separate –
do not open yourself up or
let me slip once I’ve gotten warm.