we talk about politics & the future

microwave vegetables are dangling 
like a ghost chandelier in the vestibule 
of a vestibule. everyone's coats are 
lost without them: aimless animals
coasting across between alleys. 
everyone has a big huge house waiting for them.
all the lights are turned inside out 
& there is an electric woman singing in the basement.
my mom says we have each other
as her television swallows another bottle of pills
to numb itself. the images on the screen
turn blurry & impressionist. 
i cradle the mircowave.
a large square baby full of meals.
we will eat more tomorrow 
when the sun isn't judging us.
i emerged only a few years ago 
from a swelling steam pouch. i was frozen
alongside the corn & the peas. 
a great field remembered me & all my roots
turned to veins. i will remind you
that frozen vegetables cling onto their nutrients
like strings of pearls. 
i place a broccoli in my mouth 
& wait for it to melt. a tree in the yard 
is just a broccoli florette
but the birds don't mind. they will take
any green they can get anymore.
i ask a stranger to read 
the nutrition label on my back;
read it loud like a prayer.
my grams of fat are humming. 
i am full of microwave beam.
a plate rotates in my stomach 
in the glow of a yellow light.
there is nothing you can't change 
when speckled with heat.
the house is burning without fire.
a clear slow melting. we watched the staircase
turn to salt. our grandfather's soul
was a piece of cauliflower.
it trembled & climbed forever into the attic.
unlike her, i have one long string bean 
in my chest. it's sewn from violin strings
& it plays a hunger-song in me.
in the next life there will be no president 
& we will go out in the yard & pray to dirt again.
we will crawl out of the microwave 
in the house, slippery with butter,
steam spilling from our mouths.