I woke with a pomegranate seed in my mouth

I woke with you arched over me, trying on

your inching lust

I woke and returned to sleep

infinite

for the outside was not

a place I wanted with its

ER gurney and its white starched doctors

calling my name back from afar

hands fumbling at my throat, the taste of

coal

I woke and the hung lake was still

little boys and girls shut behind their glass

sucking their thumbs or each other

to pass the time and prove something

most of them had forgotten

I woke and the lake called me and I wore

nothing and everything of your devour

all the scars, the cigarettes put out on my arms

the ways you chose to let me know I was trash

FILTH

my feet hennaed for the bride I never was

whispering your prophecy as you pull on me

a hungry wolf without satiate

even the birds sleep when moon wans indigo

your ankles covered with early dew

your hands held the blood of ancients

we left the afterbirth raw in the forest

like a tangle of limbs and rushed thoughts

steaming in cold air, savage in disdain

you were cruel then, and upright and always hungry

I was broken then, cowed and curved like an O

gibbous moon cutting through trees in shards and fingers

landing on our heads like heavenly crowns

no blessing then, or now

the water was ice cold

your hands pushing me under moss

a green film playing backward

in a room closed with a lost key

these are the things you bequeath me

now and then, a hundred times forward

with my arms making shapes again

like I did over you, bringing you to my breast

suckle the poison and the nectar

did we know

did I

feel the cracks begin to form

underneath our skin

within, within

the violet hour of

quiet, quilting

rage