Finally someone just drops it and breaks it
like a mercy killing, the cow butter dish,
it cracks easily into five pieces,

Climbing the stairs, slowly, on my palms
and soles, bent far forward, I see
my shins closer than usual—

The hospital lobby was lined with short 
and long views of Audubon’s birds,
the tallest ones’ necks curved, all the way

When I go to the bathroom I see a beetle in the tub,
black, with a band of stone color
around the center, granite with a trace of

Three years after my father’s death
he goes back to work. Unemployed
for 25 years, he’s very glad to be

A year after he left I thought of the day he’d been 
sick and I’d cut my then-husband’s hair 
to cheer him up. First I combed it, 

This is the work of my life, to say with my
body itself You fuckers you cannot
tell me who to kill.

As soon as my sister and I got out of our
mother’s house, all we wanted to
do was fuck, obliterate

You would stand under a sign saying I Like To Be Touched and Held and when someone came and stood under the sign saying I Like To Touch and Hold they would send the two of you off together.

You could never really say what it is like,
this hour of drinking wine together
on a hot summer night, in the living room