In the season of lilacs and drunk magnolias

at night my teeth transmit the truth of small
emperors and exploded planets a song
that was popular the year we walked
to the carnival in Coeur d’Alene and gnats
swarmed my cotton candy you boiler of cabbage
you cap sleeper you stunted slump a week later
laminaria expanded my awful circle
a briny memory tincture that ached for years
shoved me backward down the moss covered
boat ramp the dog I loved whose great tongue
smelled like a deep placid lake the elderly white
doctor said he put a seashell inside me I knew
it was spiky and spined but he prized the little
bomb out on the way home I wrecked your car
music is violence and tissue memory lands
my fingers in the right place or evening prim
rose do you think it’s easy now I séance my gods
I am not halved or quartered simply a seed
I carry will I ever stop standing between
doors one opens and a soprano sings the Queen
of the Night aria slams shut and another scorches
my eyes with electricity and now without prayer
or platitudes like a piano exposing its tender guts
on the street straining and moaning roiling inside