house of tooth-picks

in a future without trees
we'll have to grow houses 
in our mouths. i get the wet night
without a single firework.
in middle school we had a toothpick
house project. i built mine 
to live inside of. felt grateful for
the smallness. drank a sprite
from the lonely vending machine.
carried the house home
across the fields behind the school.
at home the house always caught fire.
i had to put it out with only
my breath. i am good at makeshift
disaster survival. i save the bed room.
the toothpicks are slightly minty.
they remember being trees just like i
remember being trees. one day when
nothing is left & the sun eats us 
like potato chips i'll find a box
of tooth picks at the back of a closet.
i'll weep & tell my lover, "we can have
another house." this house so small
that no sadness can survive.
i am a builder of smaller & smaller 
futures. we will eat pears. we will eat
canned stars. we will lick out fingers clean.
i remember exactly how i built the house
in middle school. an entrance without
a door for all the coyotes to run through. 
here, our little house at the edge
of the world. the trees in our mouths. 
keep me in the palm of your hand. if we must,
i can even fit between your teeth.