We let it sit, heavy thing with thorns.
The table sags under limp stems.

We poke at it, continue this blue
dissection, brash miscroscoping.

I could tell you how it feels to hold
a dead thing, to be content

with rings of pollen instead of metal.
I want to lie and lie and tell you

that I am the bad you need. Anything
you’ve ever been denied.

It doesn’t have to mean,
the way the glass catches the light.

And we are used to alone now,
the tender cartography of our bodies

moving on parallel streets. The worth
of our undoing, brightest blaze inside me.

On my knees for any handful of earth.