The autopsy her back yard body:
Garden shovels that are also pairing knives
and the temptation of butter sculptures

i watched when you called her Mud-- dug
fat in hand fulls of muffing-crumb soil--
toasted almonds from the oven sheets--
constructed her chin in toiling
bags of butter-- pressed with a fork
into dark brown sugar--
you made out back yard into a blue mixing bowl--
i told you to leave her there hungry--
let her rest--
it was how she wanted to be-- 
she never wanted you to build her a sculpture--
she wanted to forget the space--
dug deep for a stomach of only dead leaf--
naked bristle thigh spires in evergreen 
and the bare neck stretch marks of birch
-- contort femurs
to hold up a grey-shell sky--
cracked to give birth to a flurry of 
snowball chickadees in january 
you took pictures with your flip phone--
pearl in the hazy screen of a clam--
our yard only wanted to sleep hungry through 
the winter but you wanted her 
for garden shovels-- 
wanted to feel Mud
caramelized on your rubber boots--
pry coffee cakes from under the grass so 
as to clear space for the 
that shovel-- dirt slanted garden
shovel poised always so much like 
a pairing knife--
i watch you while i cut
granny smith apples from 
a kitchen window-- i'm baking you
a pie for when you're done
like a good oven should--
i couldn't look away when you
took the knife to finally
reach her thick jugular in the soiled--
bleed the sewer line across
the crisp tassel lawn--
Couldn't you have carved her statues 
of stone? of sugar? of Himalayan
pink rock salt-- lit with a tea candle?
she didn't need more butter 
to make her feel so much like a dead leaf--
evergreen hairs into pin pricks--
i watched you raid the fridge stick
by stick and toffee brick--
all you needed was the
pairing knife-- cube each box to 
erect effigies of what we look for
in a girl-body of butter-- she
had curves-- grease face glisten 
in dew-- she'll eat again when there's 
white flowers to chew on in the yard--
the statues are just going to melt 
anyway when the sun cracks the grey
shell of the sky--
i don't have enough butter
the finish the apple pie so 
i'm waiting for you to come inside--
put the pairing knife in the coffee table
drawer-- i'll steal it by
the lamp posts-- cut the arms
from a statue to fill the blue mixing bowl--
i worry the smell of the apples turning
into rubber boot caramel will
wake you so we'll try to smell 
quietly by the flat tongue
of the oven-- she's telling me
to stop the the mud from bleeding--
wrap her veins in pie crust 
and bake with the butter statues--
i tell her i am only as much as an oven--
and a pie can only smell so quiet--
she cries in drops
pieces of stars through the cracks
of a chickadee nest in january--
jugular bleeding into a pool
to hatch frogs and white
flower in the spring-- wake 
up in search of a shovel or
a pairing knife only to
cut butter--