log cabin

i do not want to be alone
& yet here i am with an axe again.
i chop the legs 
off of spiders. i carve a face
in the ground & let it speak.
it says, "cover your eyes."
nothing happens or else it does
& i miss it. 
the trees are all wearing 
their violin faces. once, when i was a girl
i tried to get my family lost.
i said to my mom, "this way"
when i  knew it wasn't the way home.
some girls lose their heads
when they're grown. i lost mine young.
looking up at my body from the dirt.
axe like a bell in my hand.
the cabin has goat eyes 
& goat hunger. eats greedily
& without intention. a tongue
i lay down on. i ask the cabin
how i taste & it says,
"like a steel & syrup." 
slitting the trees throats
for sap. there was a time when 
i collected loneliness like pearls.
shucking open any face i could find.
tell me what you don't tell anyone else.
i want your sleeping bags 
& you poison ivy. there is a bowl
of sirens in the kitchen
i keep for just-in-case kind of nights.
juggling them with a field mouse
who is not a field mouse. 
who is a father figure. who tells me,
"you should call more often."
i agree but then i don't. i hammer
a nail into the wall & it causes
a lightning-bolt crack. the cabin
splits in half. one is a boy & one
is a girl half because at the end of the day
that's how we're splitting most things.
kaleidoscope of dirt. i kiss
the windows goodnight. i do not 
want to own a cabin. i do not know
where it came from or who built it
unless of course it was me. i know
i built it but it is easier to pretend
the cabin came like a fresh rain 
& not like knees & knots.
nights spitting as much green 
as i could until here it was
all glorious. my axe hangs 
on the wall. there's not wood
to split tonight.