you say we are descended
from giants,
but i
am more impressed
by the tenacity
of acorns,
how they worm
their way into the wet
fall ground. inside
their porcupined-cap heads
they are oaks already, & we
mere children
playing in the dirt, watching
sparks curl round the thread-
bare dark. their every breath
threatens to catch the night on fire,
and my eyelashes are singed
with soot-stained doubting.
these are the things we burn;
with smoke in my hair,
will you love me still?
we’re reaving yesterdays like
leaf-fall & peanutshells, piling
them in great heaps to smoke
and shudder; tonight
i listen to the same sad song
you sung me on those days
you sang for no one, and
the creak of the polished floors
under my uneven footsteps
echoes through all the seasons
between that day and this:
fall, winter, spring,
summer, fall
winter, summer, fall, winter…
the sound of broken
promises is similar
to nothing so much as that
of broken glass, & suddenly
nothing
is so bitter
as chocolate.
suddenly,
there is all this talk
of elephants.
