if you fill your pockets with stones
if i make a bed in my oven
if we fade into whispers
who will write for us?

I.

your Blitz came in the form
of uterine invasion, tissue and blood
in ovarian prison camps,
red as the streets of London.

****** lives in the same apartment
with a beer gut and "paternal rights,"
sieg heil* forced into your mouth
and you are too weak to fight.

You close your eyes.
There has never been a door
to my bedroom, you think.

Blood seeps from your thighs.

Every night, you sleep for so long
and waking up is agony:
what if-- what if i didn't have to wake up again--

once-verdant fields are dry,
dreams are dead,

and the stones feel smooth in your palms.

II.

My world is a bell jar, a chrysalis:
I beat my tiny fists against the glass
until they are bruised as midnight.

They cried his name, cried "suicide,"
speculated on prescription cocktails
as they tipped back wine and thought nothing
of the ones he left behind,
crying on the livingroom floor.

Life was taken from me then
and I have no power to grant it now--
I am Rachel, barren, empty,
in need of a Bilhah.

I was born to a trailer park mother
and a farm-bred father,
and I am proud of them both--
their secondhand flatware was better
than any silver spoon

but here in the land of the stars and stripes,
you cannot break your cocoon
you cannot spread your wings
unless someone pays to crack your shell.

I am stuck.

My oven is apartment-sized
and the kitchen has no door
but it is small enough
that it wouldn't take long.

III.

You and I have loved each other for years,
and the cruelty of distance has kept us
from touching each other.

Once, you said you hadn't given up
because we made a promise to each other,
and it hadn't yet been consummated.

Part of me never wants to kiss you,
if only to keep you breathing.

IV.

Or maybe--
after--
we could hold hands
and walk into the ocean
together.