metamorphosis of my word
in your mouth.

by the time you eat my words
they will be caramelized--
sugar bleeding sores--
the ants will
haven taken their mandibles 
to them 
& they will not
taste the way i made them
to taste-- 
this is what happens 
when you you fill your tomb
with a figs & apples &
honey rolls for the afterlife--
i want to watch you slice
lines in half on the bamboo cutting board
--pass segemented caesura  
among yourselves before
the cracked knuckles
of a fire--
snap stanza over knee--
boil until the line paper 
goes limp as well--
salt to taste

my mother asks me 
why i bother writing 
if no one will know what
i meant--
& i don't try to explain it
to her-- it's something
between me & god--
my poetry is the only
religion that's every loved me--
& when my body begins
to unravel from
the seams of my freckles
i find there is
enough hold in punctuation 
to keep this body a poem--
to keep this pillow
a prayer book-- these
scars were only new words
trying to claw their
way our my skin--

i'm not here to feed you--
i'm here to teach you how
to feed yourself-- these words 
are not a prescription
or a cure-- 
i write poetry in your mouth--
& you have written somehow in 
mine--
this isn't a spoon--
the page is where you 
talk to me after they seal 
the coffin--
i'll get to learn new languages--
sit with you on your back porch 
while you worry about a screen door
letting in the flies--

when we bake each other
chocolate chip cookies
we don't tell 
each other what to taste in them--
& when i leave you poems
i want only for you to wrap your
body in word before you 
sleep & know there is part of
me there too-- between
each simultaneous syllable 
we speak from other sides 
of time--
i hear your voice--
i hear a word i once laid next to another--
i hear us.

& oh love
it is your throat
not mine that made me
a poem.