You’ve got to imagine
Her skin is lava
like when you were a boy
of six and you jumped
from bed to bed
to avoid the searing floor

You’ve got to pretend
she’s a human –
sometimes she has a tummy ache
sometimes she speaks
underwater
sometimes she gives money
to the man outside the drug store
in a wheelchair
and sometimes she avoids
eye contact

You’ve got to think
maybe you don’t want to spend
sixteen months locked up
You’ve got to think,
all that time!

Now, somehow, healing begins.
When we find it
happiness will be different
than how it used to be –
the smell of that sweater
after someone mistakenly washes it

Being man-made, we are man-handled and man-broken
We don’t mend like trees- like God’s creatures
purging, swelling
into better, stunning knots
If we do, we come together again
like our grandmothers’ tea pots-
by all appearances saccharine, revoltingly fragile,
and inside
roiling scalding fire

You’ve got no right
You’ve got no soul
You’ve got a death wish
You’ve got it coming