empty streets:
I make illegal left turns at red lights.
the moon bursts and bruises:
a plum as the aftermath of violence
hanging over the web of glowing street lamps.
cut to: sweat, which is the body’s answer
to the moon’s question: are you satisfied?
I pant like I’ve been running from something.
she pries my mouth open with her hands.
a bloodsoaked bedsheet is just a flag.
she likes to keep her fingertips on my throat
when I swallow
she thinks the bobbing is like a train engine
I don’t know enough about its parts to say otherwise.
this is the part where we dine on little animals
and my fork is a church spire:
a white blade against a tar sky.
cut to: driving with her past verdant fields
pregnant with tobacco leaves.
I taste the smoke
that hasn’t yet taken its first breath.
“I fathered a nation,” she says.
I say, “Can you unfather it?”
I am hogtied by her embrace.
a spit and a spigot are the same
if blood is the result.
she puts her mouth to my neck;
she is taking a knife to a tapestry.
I am undone by lunchtime.