To watch a death trickle outwards

like water, down through the ranks 

of family and friends to rest at the roots

of the tree that housed you: your loss

is not ripples or waves or raindrops

or tears. Your death is seismic, an uprooting,

a dangerous precedent, a prophecy

which stands dripping on a dry day

and insists on its own rightful weight.

The leaves bow under the stress, the branches

dip their heads lower for your loss.

I have lost every sense of what makes me happy

I have no idea who to be

I love you best in the morning 

when, quiet and unkempt, your hands

reach for me under the blankets, your voice

husks my name in the grey dawn.

I love you best in the morning 

and the warm weight of you, heavy-handed, 

pulling me back to your arms and your heart,

the crush of your sweet, simple need.

I love you best in the morning with your nose

in the crook of my neck, with your lips

against the pearl of my ear.

I love you best in the morning when we

start our days with a rejection

of the wrench of parting: five minutes more,

stay. I just want

to stay here with you like this. Stay.

I clamber around your neck, eager and sharp, 

twisting folds of skin between my horned hands. I am

bright-eyes, pest-bearing. 

Touch me here, where the flesh fades out to pink.

What were we in another life? 

I threaten you now, perverse, dear, trained and untenable.

Whether we were meant to meet is inconsequential. 

The import of this moment is its own affirmation.

You will be heavy in the casket, light in the grave. Your blue eyes

crest at the mouth of me. Your warm hands

clutch at the grip of me. I am never

full, I am always empty, and I will never

be fulfilled.

Your hands always at my stomach, grubbing unkempt lines.

Your desire crosses my skin, leans into my intestines, crawls

through the blood of your disappointment each month.

What am I worth to you, without conception?

What am I worth, without my body?

Price out: my mind, my skills, my potential, my ability.

Ignore even the parts that make you uncomfortable (I will learn

to be silent someday, I swear)

and still: the rubble you are left with

cannot build a home. 

Your pressure between my hips, I could crack beneath the weight

of expectation that you set down

gently in my gut. What am I without motherhood, without breasts,

without food and a desire to provide? 

What am I without open legs and a shut mouth what am I 

worth as a madonna if I only understand my pricing structure as a whore 

Like the haunted child's laughter I invite you

to follow me, here, this labyrinth, this maze of tall hedges

or black cave where you cannot see:

join me here, in the deep primacy 

of my anger, my spite, my justice. 

Dig in, but it will not save you.

Wear armor, but it will not protect you.

This battleground is strewn with others' lives, others' blood;

I am not ashamed. I am not done.

You needed me: 

you relied on me, on my strong hands and fierce teeth, 

to kill and conquer and build a Zion all our own.

You lived in my sandcastle, slept in my wolves' fur.

You needed me. And when the sun came up 

and you could see the sweeter groves, the wildflowers, so simple, pink,

I fell out of fashion. 

My bitter strength is no longer of use.

The power of my muscles and the taste of my sweat 

is no longer desirable.

Have I built my last soundscape? Fill me

with the noise of your fear. 

Blow this red sky open with the weight of your insistence:

that I cannot keep you, that I am not worthy. 

The sun will set again, crimson 

flames in an indigo sky, and Mercury will loom again 

over my dark horizon. The sun will set

and your summer child will have no sap left to sell. 

When the vultures come, they will tell you that I sent them. 

When the maggots rise, they will already know your name.