Bruise Animals -

Evenings with mother tend to be discouraging.

I always end up bruised.

Evenings with father frighten me.

All the animals will come to see where I’ve

been abused.

With bars of fragile bone and teeth I enclose a hundred birds and beasts.

We sway and swoon.

At night they howl and scream at me.

They would all much rather be set free

beneath the dull,

throbbing light of a blue-black moon.

One upon my thigh has wings.

He flies and sings.

His face is purple.

Watch me twist my mouth in pain;

I’ve sat upon some beast again.

Twice since Thursday I’ve sat bleeding out upon the back step, reading.

Apparently I have the only broken-skin menagerie.

Eyes and gills distinguish certain crimson epidermal oceans.

Sunlight on my skin is dim and withered;

in my zoo it’s night.

There’s a flock upon my back, their beaks are long and cruel and black.

They preen and flap with ruined capillaries;

yes, there’s blood, in fact.

One around my throat makes sound.

He screams against gray, early morning.

Red and bending, never ending… He’s some sort of snake, I’ve found.

And eight legged toads and lambies in rows and pink-kitten circles of lilies

and roses…

An ant-farm awry under lavender skies… all of this smeared on my thin-beaten

skin.