butter tooth

when i try to catch 
the barbed wire, i spread
like hot butter in the mouth
of a dog. i want to keep
my sculpture when 
the ice time is over. 
never give in to the sun.
our genders used to be so long
& shiny. now they get neat.
family houses in an street lamp military. 
i am told there are still holy places
that we should just not speak about.
i discovered one as a child.
all my hair fell out & i lost
the names for my brothers. my gender
turn into butter & i ate hundreds
of loaves of bread with it all alone
in the attice with the window open
to welcome back any bats that wanted
to join me.
the thing about the self is that
it is nothing without a knife
& somewhere to lay down.
i used to call my aunts & then
i stopped. i wonder if they would
even recognize my voice with my
buttered vocal chords
& the sacrifices i have made
to the gods of the well. in the miracle
of the loaves & the fishes, did they eat
the bread dry or was it decadent?
did the witnesses, years later,
smack their lips & taste their holy meal? 
i feel that way about peanut butter crackers
eaten on the turnpike. always more
than you bargained for but never
quite enough. i keep a butter knife
in my purse just in case.