tomato sauce

i open all the cans 
& the vines come back to life. 
i saw you standing in the sink
eating a tomato like an apple.
it was my heart. there is not
enough basil to cover my body.
the truth always moves like
amaranth everywhere & still
somehow unholdable. there are
no trees left to cut down. you buy
a new face & wave it outside 
the window to attract the flowers
that make me sick. i call my mom
& hang up. i call a hotline & talk
to the woman as if she's my dad.
gender for me is a fallow field.
i don't have anything left to sew
so i have to run. i remember 
my mother making tomato sauce.
the house full of steam. my husbands
pressing their noses to the window.
if you marry me i think i'll die
but i also don't know what else
i would even do. can you donate
your body to science while you're
still alive? i want to be fire wood.
not burned at the stake i mean
limb by limb the way the trees go. 
a warmth in the living room
for the dogs to sleep beneath. 
if you loved me, we would have
gone to mars already. if you loved me
we would have made pasta. 
there is a house made of sauce cans
that i climb into for the night.
it is cold & no one believes me.
i have gotten to the point where
i hold onto my beliefs like tomato seeds.
small & slimy. no matter what 
my frost does, they crawl back.
i whisper, "please please. i cannot.
not yet. not now. not now."