We tore it all down
just to watch it burn,
standing in that alley
of forgotten refuse.
 

Check the cavities in you where hurt goes,
exactly the right shape to house an insult
like a power tool snug and clipped in its case.

I woke to workers with blades
along the verge, yellow-jacketed
to signify contracted rights

In the beginning of the end she bit the thing she wasn’t meant to bite.
Apple stuck in her throat, one bite taken, then swallowed whole.

To my Ovaries

My cahoonas. My muscular daisies.
Potent white olives. You make me sick.

What is not to love
when you draw back curtains
and taste clouds
in their newness and innocence

At my feet the window sprawls a view of kneaded land,
craggy baked by the hand of the gods, dusted green
with short bit grass.

It hasn’t been this bright all year –
the moon’s white scalp, spot-lit,

a head turned away from a thing
the rest of us fear: unearthly dark

Though I am not a painter
this is to be a portrait
of my parents and my sister.