peephole

i have covered one eye to watch for cicada killers.
protect your hum at all costs. 
i slept for sixteen years
& awoke to find everyone without windows. 
made mine from ant wings.
i keep a walking stick by the door 
with my grandfather's tongue inside it.
he always said, "learn eat the doorknobs"
by which he meant he could swallow the sun.
i do not have a jaw like that.
instead, keep a hopeless vigil.
burry the rings. burry the pennies.
everything that shines. burry them like acorns. 
it is good to know what your next offering will be.
live like a necklace. count your glorious parts.
i watch from the hole in the door
to see if they take my leg from the stoop. 
what they do with the pieces
we will never know. i own a phillip's head 
just for these occasions. loosen the bolts.
take apart the machines to look
for their death metal. their hungry guts.
i swear i have made myself so small
that i could crawl through the iris-sized opening
to greet whatever kind of mouth is open
on the other side. call me a drop
of blood or else call me an earring 
made of wood. the silent feast we have
involves no food, only bones. candle lit.
a knocking at the door. i do not want 
to check again who is there. they have
a chainsaw for a heart. gills. water. 
the wound without the knife that made it.
they will stand there & tell you they are
selling bibles. inside each bible 
is a plague of locusts. they'll eat the walls
from around you if you let them.
if they don't though 
i know from my own teeth
you will eat the walls yourself.