• after you died, they forced you on me
    in the form of a pinch of salt-white ash--
    once a toe, an ear, a chunk of slimy intestine,

    or a flaccid, caved-in heart
    black and wrinkled like the crows feet tracking
    little cracked riverbeds
    for your long-dried tears
    (they've all evaporated now. they're all salty bitterness dusted
    with mineral powder and painted sweet rouge)

    when the cold men left with their papery apologies i flung you away...

    you returned, breeze-borne and stung my stone dry eyes