killjoy

when i say i'm a killjoy i mean
i am a bird who robs vending machines
& laughs like a broken jar. 
i do not want to be happy for the sake
of being happy. sometimes i see
the fresh suburbia gutting our meadows
& i think of how it births people
whose joy cannot reach their eyes.
lawn mowers & ghosts in the sparse woods. 
if i could collect all the leaf blowers
i would burn them & we would dance.
they hate what they cannot engulf. 
what emotions they cannot annex. 
our joy is the after. what comes when 
the plans to fuck the woods fail. we get
to climb trees & open chestnuts with
our feet. they will call us "killy joys"
because they do not know how
to return with us. our blood, like creeks
from which the cows drink. i can see 
the sky full of beer bottles & headlights.
our shadows, like the last crows
of the season. in my purse sometimes
i carry chicken eggs. in my head 
i am a bowl of keys. none of them go
to anything which is unfortunately
the point of being barefoot. 
once, as a teenager, i begged the boyfriend
to stop eating my hair as a joke. 
he leaned in & said, "i could eat
your fingers instead." would you believe me
if i told you i fed him? later though,
in the dark, i learned how to eat his hair too.
then, his fingers. then, too his bones.