no matter

you can finish the nightmare
when we're home &
there is no one watching.
a lemon is a place to be a seed.
sewing a lock of hair
into the hem of a pair of underwear.
there are not enough witches
in this town. the council meets
only when a tomato rots.
they have little notebooks. they have
coriander wigs. walk on coals
all the way to the plate of lady fingers.
i don't mean desserts i mean
ladies were harmed in the making
of this ritual. a television plays
a rerun of the 9/11 news.
i was at a birthday party. everyone
was eating with their fingers.
knuckle-deep in icing.
keep the scary story at arms-length 
& it won't have to be a funeral.
felled trees bleeding out 
with no one trained in this.
i had a lesson on packing a gun shot wound
at work. no matter what
someone is going to become
a monument & we don't want that.
sometimes obelisks grow 
in the basement of my parent's house.
my father grinds them down
& uses them as salt. he says,
"a bone a day keeps the stink bugs
away." it doesn't work. they craw 
along every windowsill in the house.