My life has laid disastrously
in yellowed egg-foam scenes of betrayal & delight

where I took you in my core
where I held you till the skin broke.

You thickened your fist in the summer,
cartilage shot
from the long days cleaning your bomb.

There are knuckles on the branch, still,
spelling ransom notes with scrabble tiles.
There are coyotes in the yard.
There are ghosts in the anthills.

We could smell winter end from your window

the fruit that fell in autumn,
the pulp beneath the snow.

The cider cans hush as you pad past the sill,
& look for snipers in the mountains.

I wash dishes as my hair dries,
without habit or routine.
The floor's beneath my feet
& as clean as a hydrogen bomb.

I held you in my core till the skin broke,
but I only held my core by the stem.