Soles on fire:
stamping out their wicks
beside the cabin where
you first swallowed your eyes.

Last winter you skinned a trout:
peeled back the gills with your tongue,
ate from within him the structure of domestic silence,
gutted yourself with the remains.

The roots were a cancer:
they wanted the whole of the cement-
you had to carve it out-
skewered the insides, the forearm is clean.

Every matter turns to body
when it dies:
the bodies smooth the sheets
when you ask them not to.

The exoskeleton was proud
and the flesh was unbecoming.
You chose to seal your hair away.
Estranged the neuron, you buried direction.
It wreaks havoc on the ghosts, they cannot sleep.