It’s true that I wanted to give the world something beautiful.
The way it had given things to me. A trout on a hook.
The stacked coins of a tambourine on my thigh.
My sexual hunger like a red scarf.
You would not guess this from the way my body moved.
I feared everything. My life for their safety.
Twisting the sheets. An electric fan swiveling its flat white head.
The landed shark. Wanting my body to be eaten.
Fearing a mouth on my skin. My body spending itself.
In this way I often lost track of my arms,
just as moths will sometimes rest, wings closed.
Its belly a flat song. Once I felt my life enter my body, a swollen
lungless light. Each finger finding its home. I was
a spinning coin. When my body became
a wild onion field, insects took their time with me.
In that we shared a particular patience. I am
silver in my want, ridged in lack, my brown
& fragrance. Already the birch trees turn
to face me, leaf hoards tissued w/ winged
seed. Like me, these trees will rot
from the inside out, paper husks a torn bed,
a falling calendar of empty & speed. This body knows I am
patient like an onion. My life for my safety.
When I said yes. When I said no.