jabbing themselves in the ribs & hiding
their eyes in pots of flour. Someone’s mother
is a moonrock they worry
in their palm & promise with great difficulty
not to swallow. It’s easier to know an object
separated from the guilt of looking
directly at it. The window has not
been half-glass for a long time. Through it, fields
of yams & grain betrothed to future
androgynous meals. The rain sleeps around us
chemical as we wrestle dandelions
from their follicles, discard the bald men
to their seedy offices. I’m sorry
there’s a sinkhole in your kitchen, but I need a person
who will pull my hair & mean things
when they say them. What’s devoted
to etched memory was never ours
for long—mountains a useless collection
of tusks across the mouth
of nostalgia. I hear it’s anyway good
news, I hear the goldfinches
are coming & forgiveness
slunking in like the old bear it is,
with two teeth left & a bullet
in his cheek. Biding time, waiting
to corrode that bitter gunmetal into hope.