botanical cure for all despair 

the doctor fills my mouth with dirt.
i try to talk & say, "i want a cherry blossom"
but he cannot hear me
& so he plants a pear tree.
i am a child of pear trees.
the one outside my aunt's house.
how she never harvested the fruit 
until instead of pears, eyes grew.
then mouths. the mouths said,
"why are you not hungry for me?"
the doctor is not a doctor 
but a boyfriend. haven't you ever
believed in love as a panacea?
well, not quite love. when i say love here
i me desire. when i say desire i mean
he took everything he could from me.
i have stuck shovels in my flesh.
lied & said, "i have playdough lungs."
breathed in the noise of an unlocking door.
the taste of soil. how it stings
& sooths. how it carries
the bone shards of the first mammals
who ran, terrified from a ball of fire
in the sky. why are we not worshipping
the sun? why are we not having secret
rendezvous with the ghost of the moon?
the pear tree grows & grows
& like all promises, is abandoned
by the planter. the roots. the branches.
the children who come to climb there
& carve their initials into my throat.
i tell them, "it is not love if it means
you must destroy." then again
here i am with a stomach full
of ancestors. each of them a pear.
each of them fallen in the yard,
rotting like a pile of shoes. 
then, the flesh is sweet. then i weep
in the form of fledglings. 
then the doctor says, "it is a miracle."
cure is a synonym for 
"i want to forget you."