(we  
              cradle—limbless—hungerly in violet  
           half-snow)
    barnacled to a ribcage of someone’s leftover   //god–  
my brother’s eyes        were spoonfuls of thistle  
    and so  
         he gave them

                          (    to mother  
               in a bell jar  
                         packed with apples that never rot)  
          

i said—dear—"shall we rot together?"  
he said  
               no  
but held my tail tighter than  
        the census did the mute  

            when they told us  
the white-ones  
       could out-breed  
       guilt  
       (our teeth were ripped  
         not sharpened)

       [oh darling look!] the moon  
ate itself out of order,  
  its halves spitting  
  bloodless milk on  
     sterilized clover  

—           the doctors wore hands like corkscrews  
               & unbirthed  
             any child that could  
            dream backwards—

       (i remembered)  
             chewing on a pipe-cleaner name  
        while a man with a cage of bees  
                instead of a face  
                        taught me the word for  
             acceptable.  

——

       there are songs that only come  
         when your tail’s caught  
in a trap meant for  
        your cousin’s ghost  
            (he cried into me  
               like a buckshot lullaby)  

and so i  
      curl.  
    (last ***** first).  
             hide my eyes  
                  in the cracks between

     <<he loved me with a scalpel made of lightning>>  
     <<i loved him with the parts they said to  
                            unsee>>  

and (       hush hush now       )  
              the roots are crawling into me—  
                       gentle, dumb  
                                 unchosen—

i  
       am  
           not  
              the mistake  
                       i was taught to  
                            worship.