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Misery of the broken pie bird

I knew if I held the queen bee in my mouth I’d be stung let’s talk about the weather he was Leni Riefenstahl with a camera I was the German girl who baked clapped my hands flour flumed up did a swarm of bees fly into his mouth was he stung happiness permeated the house by the railroad tracks cedar stink creosote caked gumboots the washing machine groaned as embers flew down the chute under his collar burnt I married a man who worked the mines in Kellogg Idaho star-shaped coke scars marked territory on his neck his back he star-shaped scarred me alone in that house by the railroad tracks I canned tomatoes made jam ate carrots ripe in Coeur de’Alene dirt where Lark was buried where Grace was buried where my French grandfather cooked for a Japanese internment camp I grew cocaine thin hiked Tub Hill every season sank into my body my eyes glint and staring he star-shaped me whipped me seven then ten years a gift like breaking a horse such graceful devastation