Possum skeleton crushed down
so deep into the road it’s the road
where you found me, verge of sleeping
pill in my mouth chased with vodka
stored in my flask, & you got out of
that Nissan with the horrible timing
chain, touched my cheek in that careful
Midwestern way, I tossed the ripped
backpack which was my poor body
& we rode. Ice-laced rain broke
on the windshield only to re-atomize
in your wide, brown eyes measuring
the klutzy waltz I had with the vacuum
until I fell through your apartment’s
cheap tile wall & into the meth addicts’
place next door: Flooded pantries,
flooded toilets, & clumps of hair
on their coffee table, you said baby
what we have here is what we might say
is a bad idea, like a drive-thru liquor store
on Saturday night, like a tea party
where the stuffed animals are decapitated
& the toddlers stand shell-shocked. You
waved your hand, a courtyard & small
bungalow flickered into being. You
opened the wrought iron gate, the ferns
went green upon your short lovely
fingers & you said I don’t think we need
water. From there on out, your hair
undulated on the left side of your face
which smelled like chocolate bars
& lemon tree barks & never failed
to electrocute then defibrillate starlings.
You took off your shirt: diamonds wept.
You opened your mouth to kiss my
shoulder: every skeleton in every grave
erupted out of the ground clapping.
Why did you want me when I was
nothing like an Austen novel, nothing
worth putting an engine in, every word
I spoke like a turtle flipped on its shell,
its little legs kicking in that unintentionally
funny way turtles have of dying. You
knew we were bound to fall, the center
of a field of hay in rural Slovakia where
the villagers say, Fuck you, I love you,
& I know my hands are little claws
you slide rubber gloves on so I don’t nip
& I worry you will see my face one day
& feel a disappointment turn granite
in your guts, but you were always an ace
with a chisel, a deep thinker in a seismic
era, & though I am broken in fifty ways
& though it’s not your job to superglue
please again make me something other
than stuttering me: make me a baby.