The light ate too much of me

I gave smallest permissions
ants streamed and valved
set about their destiny
with precision and very little cursing
wanting to make it happen

like in the movies then you catapulted
under what spell
I hung from the dock on orange bungees
counted jellyfish a child in the back seat
on the way to her first drive-in The Ice Queen

waved my hands in phosphor
bright ambulance doors
kelp tangled my ankles
cried a nuisance did you see my did you
an empty syringe refuse the lush grass

reeled undressed barefoot gardenias
smashed their mouths against glass
a fox alight along the edge
of my animal face sweat on my palms
pooled on my belly your most terrible

tongue in the sugar box slow and quick and slow
I killed my chest’s engine
what I mean is gardenias your mother’s braid
her foxtail coat your voice
inside the pink clock

February smelled of heartland and prairies
battered in the infantry
let my lippy me be stolen by a witch
nothing was more private than our pink
pink your breath pure in half air