The girls in my stories love to eat each other.
In one, Red Riding Hood lies back on her cloak
with her spooled ringlets falling all around her as
shiny and intimate and obscene as anything.
The Wolf says, "I'll have the heart last."
Red says, "Good, I've wrapped it as a present in
skin, fat, and ribs and I've been saving it just for you."
The Wolf kisses up to her femoral artery where there pulses
live communion and laps her way into carnivorous heaven.
In another, there are two characters
who don't share our names but you're not stupid.
They fly cranes across balconies
with ink-smudged messages folded on the inner planes,
the hearts and brains of paper.
The words are meaningless; the game is to divine intent.
When they talk, phones fall awkwardly from their mouths
and they pray to God the other knows how to unwrap them.
The one who doesn't share your name cuts
through the skin and fat and ribs of sound
and savors one fleeting drink from the well of me.
You choke on it, then swallow, and then we love each other again
with the biting curiosity of strangers.