I sit with your ashes:

whether the wind or my memory fades, you are gone.

You are soft, here, a palate 

of grey heresy through the grope of my fingers.

Silo of grief: rosetted, engraved, bequeathed. 

What should I do with you except bring you here

to the wind and the sand and the waves? Here the sun

remembers your skin, here the wind 

remembers the soft blue of your eyes.

I am too tired for art, too angry for splicing our hearts.

The tiny cairn of you is my heart, your voice is my bones. 

I am beyond you, you have been gone for years.

You like to speak in maps

--Francine J Harris

All your paths are me and after the crush 

of the ink and your hot breath, heaved weight, hunched spine I slink 

unnoticed to the tray, grab the steel, 

scrub until the skin is rust is red.

Water between my legs, pale till clear for lack of salt.

The blood could fix it, so I invite you back, even when I don't. 

Six months from now I will pack on the weight: pound after pound to cover up

what the wool couldn't cleanse, because 

if you can't see me, you can't hurt me. And if that fails then

if all you see is disfigured, you'll choose to hurt someone else.

Which guilt is uglier? Which leg is bloodier after you 

turn me over and begin again? The mattress bows, there is a stain next to the ceiling fan, how? 

The floor creaks, my hips speak back, a vain epileptic shock. 

The windows turn their pale faces inward, we are reflected unto ourselves, and I 

wish we could take the grate to my face.

How ugly do I have to be, to be safe? I think 

I will find out. 

I grow used to the turn of your shoulders at night.

I grow used to the wall of your back. 

What am I worth to you, without conception?

What am I worth, without my body?

Price out: my mind, my time, the labor and creation of my will.

For comparison: obeisance, wetness, heat. Your dreams.

The mouth, the hands. Your cum.

Ignore the parts that make you uncomfortable (I will learn

to be silent someday, I swear)

and see: the rubble you are left with

cannot build a home. 

Your hands in my guts, you wrench, I lurch. I could crack beneath the weight

of expectation that you set down

gently, heavy, between my hips. 

What am I without motherhood, without breasts,

without food and a kitchen 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?

I could charge you hourly, but for the privilege of

your back, your glare, your thrusts, I keep my peace, 

I run your bath, I become host. 

Creased, her cheek, the morning. 

In between the dust and shafted sun, she yawns, her jaw askew.

Her long limbs in the cold. 

I cover her. She smells like copper,

like Dial and cheap wine and copper. 

Curves on curves, her lashes, the blue

they rest on, brown when open.

I guess we forgot to be good, last night.

I cover her. I guess we forgot to make peace.

You like to speak in maps

--Francine J Harris

You delineate me and after the crush 

of the ink and your hot breath, hot weight, hot need I slink 

unnoticed to the tray, grab the steel, 

scrub until the skin is rust is red.

Water between my legs, pale till clear for lack of salt.

The blood could fix it, so I invite you back, even when I don't. 

Six months from now I will pack on the weight: pound after pound to cover up

what the wool couldn't cleanse, because 

if you can't see me, you can't hurt me, and if that fails then

if all you see is ugly, you'll choose to hurt someone else.

Which guilt is uglier? Which leg is bloodier after you 

turn me over and begin again? The mattress bows, stains, creaks.

My hips speak back, a vain epileptic shock. Together they and I 

wish we could take the grate to my face.

How ugly do I have to be, to be safe? I think 

I will find out.