my insides, the cluttered parts, grow cold like the white winter
sun on a woman’s blue silk fan, drifting back and
forth and back.
there was something that used to be tucked in a corner down there,
in the muddled and mismatched places,
kept in a corner or a closet,
something i misplaced that came back and now breaks
in the mornings, when the curtains part
and i know the world like adam knew eve in all her shining,
the drum takes me
a cage, a drum, a small brown bird—am i ready to trade my soul?
the grass is bluer, teal like my grandfather and his ducks,
behind the long, bronze, scarred bars.
teal like my grandfather and his berry bushes,
his cans and cans of jam and his cracking pond,
the timbre of an empty cowbell,
and pulsing, pulsing, pulsing,
your thighs forcing your bike up the hill,
and knowing the top is ours.
the cluttered parts flutter, frosted.
a drum is a cage that speaks true.
