wasn’t a sculpture come to life.
wolf in soapstone. whim of wild.
kettle where the ghost unwilts.
I wouldn’t build you, barrack;
on the sill sits shrapnel green.
I wouldn’t carve you, tremor;
here, my turnips rear
their spindly tongues.
what was left of the trumpet
once it stuttered the march?
oh, but only its mouth.
what went missing
from the wood, once an oak?
all but a sprig
hollowed out
so it might ring
true;
you are not the woman whittling ghosts
from a borrowed garden’s-worth of lilac.
& I am no river.
for how I starve
to love you?
it is more frivolous.
like skipping
rocks, like
on a lap, rocking,
how the river laps
against stone
until out
pours its bud
but, no,
I wouldn’t call your eyes
diamond saws.
when what I’d wanted
of your body
was sweet & pitiful & closer,
they were pursed; they were keen.
when what you’d held in your bell jar,
was a swam, remember? wasn’t it
a swarm not of bees,
but of bone?
& wasn’t the dragnet full
—not of stars,
but—of flecks?
let it be told:
I am no tender axe
for to fell you,
for to whet your asking
with a mouthful.
take.
what I’d wanted of your body
was no moonshine
& no fragrance
—not of the wax
or of its flower—
not the fever,
but its outbreak.
what I’d wanted
of your body
was no body,
but what comes after.
not ravishing or awash.
your palms not stained with plum.
your skin not sopping nectar.
what I want is not in question.
before your torrent
of fickle bee stings,
I am but a secondhand bouquet.
I am at the mercy
of your swarm, your dead-end
green, your petrified terrarium.