I: I have done it again.

I ripped the closets from the hallways, and
our board games toppled at your loafers, penniless
and cracked, sun-baked Navajo.
I stole the door-key, and gave to you

my baby teeth, albino jewels that you strung
with my dried & browning mother-cord.
The window-box beneath the shutters was the
rotten cherry siding of my esophagus, when

a horny winter impressed its maladies
upon your sterling silver antlers – you
cut your hair and returned to me, the
scissors still against my palm, and I was jealous.

When my hands were melted candy bars, I flinched –
my shakes stained the bath I ran for you, and
the dirty water reached your hymnals, stacked
as bags of sand upon the door. I cupped the

sticky chocolate of my insides and poured them
underneath your chipped and peeling fingernails:
My proteins were your spoils, but you lay limp,
sideways against ceramic afterbirth, the place

haunted with hooves & trichinosis, the scent of
bluish tubes protruding from haunches, bruised and
tender. Our babies were heavy with water, and
the floors cracked against their cries.

II: O, my enemy, do I terrify?
I met you on Thursday’s underbelly, dark sticking to our mattress – O, you, encrusted. O, you, gathered and dropped into beds of yarn: Do I taste?