Our mothers endure the shit of hours.
It’s their ultimate needful
sacrifices that make this city so hard to live in.

The music blinks
across a screen
in this bar.

The music
is sad like me but not
like me

I do not sing So Blue
I do not sing
So Much.

I sit, I drink, I want
your nighthick eyes
to cross this room

to dangle over
noise & smoke
& drinks &
recognize me,

godsoaked,
perfect.

I sat next to you, once, at the end of a table.
you held up a picture of a skull,
its teeth fixed with stones

Imagine I place stones
in your incisors. I’d make of
your teeth a necklace.

Imagine
I had other names:

Girl with skirt of snakes
left handed hummingbird
face painted with bells

Imagine I behead you,
head in my palm,
tender fruit too sweet
it would sicken me.

I know you have stitched
yourself together, same
as I know that you love
me none.

Instead,
I swallow soft songs
until I eat my battering
heart. I go home & fall
asleep in my skirt of snakes,
I leave the tv on, I forget
to brush my gemless teeth,
I let this city with
no center split me apart.