When the moon falls into the steering wheel.

 

I like falling into a steering wheel and remembering everything

I ever did with you under a moon—licked the plate clean

At the table and tossed it into

The hesitant sky— even

The stars didn’t believe me—

measured out of chicken breast cubes—

You held me until I ate again— but

My body has a way of escaping—

I’m a person who lives

Entirely outside of my own skin—I live on

The sound of a perhaps screamed in the wind chimes—

This is what it is like to love someone made of approximations

of love—I write poems about the birthday cakes I won’t

eat again—always saving the corner piece

with the fate red rose—

you taste like a tablespoon of icing

consumed from a wooden bench at

the park between the swings

and the old roller skating rink they

tore down and poured cement over as burial–

I relive my cut my wrists in circumnavigation—

retrace my steps

Somehow back to you—

Do you remember what girl I was coiled

In a yellow bus seat—

Head thudding—arms becoming snakes

To eat each other—

I write poems because I know very little about myself

Anymore—I like to remember us

Because I felt steady—I felt

Like my life had a back porch to sit on—

A father who craved watermelon in the sink—

We’re all dying in our own ways

And I’m afraid what it will do to

Me to love you enough to share the process—

I hope when people read my poems

For a moment they understand who I

Haven been becoming all the

Way over here—

I love the city because it’s populated

With so many people I get to

Be all of them—I don’t have to choose—

I dye my hair unapologetically

Black so the stars mistake me for

A piece of the sky—

Eat potato rolls smushed with

Banana and peanut butter

Because I’ve been pretending for

So many years that I don’t want to eat that—

You know if you saw me eating

You wouldn’t love me anymore—

I measure my own love

In a porclein bowl

Where it’s safe—but oh love

You’re safe with me—I know

How to teach someone to love me

I practice in the mirror—growl brushing

Teeth—I have been a wife—

I have been a corset—I have been

A prayer in the mouth of enough

Boys to know that if you want to

Love me we can play for awhile

And you can be entirely intrigued by me—

I’ll get naked and you can

Watch how my ribs spread like

A fist of spoons—

I park. I remember how heavy

It is to have bones made of

Plastic straws and

Cookie crumbs off the moon.