Poetry Month Spotlight

They didn’t tell me where the funeral was so I know it’s everywhere,

spilling over edges with its overwhelming hunger while I brew tea

the Russian way my mother taught me because strength necessitates

dilution. There is always tea and there are always lemons; consistency

is a little gift. “Did you know gift is the German word for poison?”

speaks a voice flush with anecdotes like some bloodfed mosquito

high on insulin (or maybe nostalgia). “Beware the standing guest”

I say, or think, or whatever –– talking to yourself is a dish best served

cold, and anecdotes are a fish without a schoolmate, and I’m waiting

for my own blue lips because it’s me who was the goth all these years,

wasn’t it? Wasn’t I the one dropping the knife at the dinner table and

saying come and come and come until tears ran dirty streets through my

various eyeshadows: sad little tombstones for my superstitions, carrying

sense out to sea? Whatever. They didn’t tell me where the funeral was

so I filled a ripped bag with knives, left their sharp trail as breadcrumbs.

I’ll be waiting here for your ghost, or for a regeneration of myself

which will not recognize him.