Welcome home, a strawberry plant
grows out back
for you, but it
has twisted to fingernails
to scratch away the bugs.
It has a heart, ready for transplant.
I promised to die,
I admit, I’m in the habit,
but it just sat in one spot,
sucking on water cells
reminding me what it
would feel like to overheat.
Now you are here, hiding in
the desert, my fruit not fertile
enough for you
to eat.
So, you say it’s the center of time,
one hand holds it,
the other says good-bye.
inch of time spent over the sea,
dragging your dead body back
from the sharks I fed you to.
There should be enough salt
to drown in. Now that is something
you don’t hear of!
But, I have heard of Buddha,
and Ghandi,
and what great advice for the
blonde girls in white dresses,
not scratched by hands of
light drinking, or hard gunfire;
the girls untouched by
living a dead life, waking under floorboards
built by their mothers.
Your heavy photograph burns to
my tongue. I spit. I curse you out
of your newly dried grave.
I am ecstatic for your corpse,
it grows on me like tough leather.
Now for her.
I carry a monsoon to her driveway.
She is lit up. A bright pumpkin
ripened for plummet.
She dresses in honeysuckle,
and flickers like whiskey.
I haven’t thought of her name,
she is black as a canvas; a new galaxy
before energy matters.
If her heart happens to
do that, I will carve it out.
I will take it back to July in my teeth
where the desert is waiting for me,
it’s Queen.
Limp beauty drops like spiders from
silk; stars fall to their knees.
Now you understand?
My little kiss!
My little wish for after-flowers
of genocide; lush with knowing
and innocence.
Not thankless, no!
Not ignorant as much as the
narrow sister that floats
over blue bells every six years or so.
Just simple, and simply a
slow desire for Gratitude.
maggiemaeijustsaythis 