The ruin we made of our garden
Is confusing even today.
Seven trees times three

That future life, slept in the anemic sunlight
While the old poison slowly filled my whole
      bloodstream.

In the palace, at the table set for the feast, they were
      awaited

My sponge
fresh out of her cellophane
A starlet, unintroduced to my kitchen’s ways

“I’m looking forward to my death,” she said.
I sat upright. I watched her blond hair sway,
this college girl who taught our Sunday School.

As we stood by the casket, Momma gasped,
through tears, “Look hard! You must remember her!”
I looked hard, tried to memorize the slight
malicious curl of her thin lips—too red—

The tail, held back along the spine, keeps them
—most times—from kicking you. I don’t know why.

We beat wings. We
fly rings. We

Mostly my nightmares are dull. My ex-wife yells
and I yell back. The cat bolts out the door
and bites the neighbor’s child. Or else