2 Poems

You shuddered when I held the fish cheeks in my hands and ate the sweet

meat from a spider web of bones, sucked the fat through my teeth.

I tried to convince you that it tasted like well water from a spigot,

delicate and metallic. That night I ran my fingers across your back until

you snored. I went to sleep with the memory of bone on my tongue

and dreamt of cracked lips and cresting waves. In the morning you rose

first, shoveled snow from the walk, scraped ice from the latch

on the barn door, folded fresh hay into the chicken coop.

When you meet me in the kitchen it is with a cock’s tail feather—

iridescent ink with chips of ice from resting in the snow.

You’ve forgotten last night and the quick work my hands made

of a skull. Now I’m aproned, creaming butter for cakes, pink

skinned from the stove’s heat. You tip the feather across my brow

stand behind me, thumb the hem of my shirt as it hits my hips and bite

at the curve of my neck. Yours is the mouth begging for eggs.

Learn to touch yourself first. Marry a man who will suck marrow through his teeth. Marry a man

who buys thick cuts of meat and doesn’t complain when the butcher paper goes soft and his

hands smell like blood. Never have a child with a man who is afraid of blood. Never marry a

man who likes it. At some point in the marriage your husband will want to fuck another. Don’t

worry. At some point you will too. Weigh hunger against patience. Marry a man who will suck a

pit even after the sweet slick of fruit has gone. Learn to touch yourself first.