finger trap

i would drive two hours to see you
for just a spoonful of peanut butter.
eating your other half
of a stale bagel
in your studio. 
pigeons outside had more
self-preservation than me.
i am always knitting
a future of vaults.
rapunzel moon in chastity.
you gave me a key & i thought
that meant we were pouring cement.
i thought this was a house
of fingers. instead, i turned 
my eyes into snails. you stopped responding.
i drove & parked outside 
your apartment building,
worrying that you had died.
the city was always a snow globe
tucked into your cheek.
muck of winter. the warmth 
of your breath 
on the thin windows.
each again made me a collector
of pennies. heads up or tails,
i didn't care.
once, i started driving there
& my car's engine began
to spill smoke. i could have
turned back but instead
i kept driving until the engine 
swarmed with knuckles. a ringing phone.
the piles of knees i had shed.
you saying, "goodnight"
into a cereal bowl. i could reach you
& i couldn't get home.
i walked until the ground was
made of keyboards. finally 
a stork came by & said,
"you look like you believe
in god." i responded,
"you are wrong." the bird said,
"we're going to need to amputate."
he pointed to my fingers
one fused to the other
from promises i shouldn't have
kept making. they took months 
to grow back. months after
we stopped talking &
i turned into a salamander 
in a new city. still i wonder
if there is a chapel where
our thumbs go to be lovers
if they are happy. if a limb is ever gone. 
if you understood i wasn't burning
myself on the sidewalk for you.