MY GOD, I WISH YOU COULD TEACH ME HOW TO LOVE

Saw your face in a tree root, nearly passed out, quiet

            because of blood, let’s try this again, quiet in threads,

springs, not even a little bit of love, this is how to turn life into

            lie, this is the house of my mother, filled with honeycomb,

my childhood bed tells me to watch out, these months are mouths

            the forest out back is full of decay and my mind has rhythms

you’ll never know, but sometimes we enter the Atlantic and words

            leave your mind, you flick salt off my skin, the truth is

my ghost-body walks alongside yours, times I reached out because

            truly, genuinely, so god-awful sorry about all of this, can’t

explain, hold your gaze, fetch the mirror, gauze, needle, wooden

            basket, yellow bear, tub lip, clock, pot, stove coil, really

what I wish is to be a soft thing, instead I am my mother’s daughter

            my body is a lightning rod of fear, you tell me to turn into

a flame, knowing full well this blaze will not keep you warm

            I’m used to the warmth from the inside, the outside, beneath

placid lake’s surface there is rage, there are shoes, the past combs

            my hair, makes my follicles hurt, this tired old story of home

and the men were wolves, you know what they say, I need a butcher’s

            knife and one hell of a personality, I walk the paths at night

in my mother’s red coat, this one inexplicable evening, this haunted

            heart and jeez I love the lack of blood on your hands, anyway

go back to the pines and roots like your fingers, spend days in leaves

            evening kicks down my door, in her bathroom I remember.