don’t worry;
I can black my own boots
just fine.

one less thing for you to do.

concave,
convex;
you stretch and shrink

from the blood and chocolate
on your tongue.
a mouse, peripherally,
jumps sobbing out of your
breadbox.

you drive your fist through the mirror and when
i walk in you
are at the dining table,
playing chess with the pieces of your shattered
soul
the blood still running
from your knuckles.

on the impracticality of
impracticality
of the
wings of dragonflies made of
cellophane in which
i wrap myself in the hopes that one day i will
suffocate on the impracticality of
shoulders moulded to fit
the leaning heads of our lovers on the
impracticality of
bedsprings
creaking to wake up the neighbors at three forty-
six a.m. or
clouds, even
bursting at the seams to drench us with our own
tears
why can’t we just
**** each other from the
outside instead

out:
     murmurations and even
     simpler:
     the way grass grows and
     dandelion pollen rubs off on your
     nose
     the motive behind a ******
     of crows in this galaxy of
     peacocks

in:
     bloodskinbone and
     respiration and a
     heart that won’t *******
     quit.

I stir one
tablespoon of honey
in with the sarcasm. (Sip
) This is how I hope God’s
cup of poison tastes: pungent,
earthy, and delightfully warm going
down. I smile and
say to you, *I like this. It’s
bitter.

american spirit in your mouth and
english breakfast in your mug
here at the café kitty corner from the
bank—
the echo of your swan song
rebounding from the concrete exoskeleton
of this desiccated city
curled in on itself like
paint chips and
parchment
like bright blue coleoptera in a dusty corner
of the attic.

my words taste like
whiskey left out too long;
they are worse
going back down.

this
is a mirror and this
is the stove Don’t
touch it
you’ll get burned

this is
a papaya.
taste it, it’s
good if you
like that sort of flavor and this
is a word
it used to be god but i guess it’s with
you now
and this
is
the cat.
see
she likes you.

this
is watercolor
for paper and for skin and sometimes
those are the same
thing and this is your
bottom lip and

turn around.
stop. stop stop stop stopstop
stop:
this is
it.