centipede day care

go be him in you little boy house.
a trolley that goes from hell 
to the gas station. eating our fingers
in exchange for more legs. 
this is always a bargain. what will i give
& what will be taken from me?
i work in the centipede day care these days.
a line of mini vans come to drop off
their precious syllables. we sing.
put our tongues in the glove box.
you will not need them when you work
with insects. instead, we talk with
our feelings. i weep & so do they.
they are crying about climate change
& i am crying about the cost of funerals.
we burned my grandfather to avoid 
that kind of expense. he has un-scattered ashes.
sometimes i want to feed them
to the feral cats. let him live again
as the mischievous comet he was. 
we cannot know what the dead wanted
but we can use it to get what we want.
that is what the united states have done
for centuries. the centipedes like
to eat bibles. i feed them first
from revelation which they say
tastes like sugar. a rogue radio show host
tells the truth about the moon landing.
it was real. it was real & people starved
to death that night & the stars were all
centipedes waiting to be loved.
we can disagree on a lot & i can still love you
if you agree to go with me to dairy queen.
i can want to feel safe in the ways
i was always told we were. plastic spoon.
plastic cup. the cemetery brimming with
centipedes from work. i am polite & so 
i wave to them. they are busy 
with them gameboys. it's not enough
to be hungry for a gender. you have to
go & carve it from a piece of soap.
mine comes with more legs than you
could ever count. when the parents come
to pick up their nightmares 
& hide them. i say, "these are my horrors now."