My sister plucks
gravel pebbles
from the driveway,

thistle from the edge
of the yard,
a fist

of brittle leaves. 

Stirs and sings. 
Like any good mother would,

spoons the healing
soup
into the kitten’s

split lips,
its little tongue
a church.

We prayed it to life
but we weren’t saints
of anything.

It choked all the way
to death. No blood
on our hands, just a body

limp like petals,
a breathless thing,
which is to say,

someone who will never leave.

This is how I learned to love.
Come,
open your mouth. 

When I was a child I was not a child.
I knew about Death, the man

with high cheekbones
who stood over me in my dreams.

I could not move and this aroused him.
He did not move with me.

I would wake and stare
into the mirror,

remembering him. He loved me
like he had no choice.

The mirror told me to turn into a woman
and I obeyed. No, I have

never been in my right mind. No, I have
everything left to give. 

Bronze statue in cowgirl, little puddle
of tears on the hardwood floor, silo
of wheat and lost lightning. Desire
is fruit flies clinging to horse reins.
Rattle and whip and frenzy. Charm
my chemicals. Call me your most
beloved ache, like hopes hatching
under the feet of porcelain chickens,
like the hair clip dotted by pink
frogs when you were just a girl
and didn’t know what a woman was.
A woman is desire dressed in flames.
Desire is a bask of crocodiles gutting
the carnations in my chest. I come
to you sorry from the hips, crawling
uncocooned, brain burdened, bent
solemn as a palm tree. Dismembered
doll hunger. Teeth painted red. I am
telling myself lies. I am terrified
of love, its velvet-fucked hands.
Forgive me for needing something
to believe in—the moon, my mother,
a kind true god who doesn’t wish
me dead. Forgive me, desire, for living
in your belly like an unsaid prayer. 

In my defense
they told me I was pretty
or listened to me talk
or shared a secret
or were named James
or Kate
or Miguel
or had a mother
they miss
but gave up on
or they reached
for my hand
with guitar hands
or garden hands
or god hands
or danced with their hands
on their knees
in exhaustion
because they are serious
about pleasure
and how much they love
this song
or pointed to the moon
not delivering
a line
or a speech
but a drawn out
four letter word—
fuck or damn
stop or look
and I looked. 

I want you no longer.
I want you. No. Longer.

The billboard blocks the moon.
The hurt is a hole and I’m buried.

Purple petals stuck to the bottom of a shoe.
Rain in the ashtray again.

A window cleaner on a skyscraper, a single loose tooth.
A river runs its mouth.

You call and I don’t answer.
You call and I am history repeating.