m. wright

Miss crisp whisperer you        just whisked burden

out from the cracks and corners         a soap and sud

 

with which to let the dirt drop            from under my

nails. If I’m too soon              to ask you to    be god

 

at least             let me think you     a Beatrice,

and let god be the carriage     or wheel    before

 

we’re hauled,                          escalator-up, for dinner.

Before we eat              you mention the sun

 

and the progress of my cooking         body and yours.

I am less than  umami  to the universe, you say.

 

You open the leaflets of a bacon                    sandwich and

we recite Rich             poems because we don’t pray

 

but our throats             compel us to resignify the food.

I prick my dinosaur                 teeth into the crust and they

 

stay there when I pull my head back              a piece

of what’s coming, I say.         You wince at the fossil.                         

 

The Romans made concrete with          volcano ash

and seawater. In the Colosseum pillars there are       ruined

 

homes and                   remnants of the Mediterranean.

We both turn to the wall         instinctively. You can’t

 

move a kitchen wall when the            beams are load-

bearing            . You can put up         anything in a museum if you

 

found it           fair and square. We finish the last of the bacon        

and you put my teeth in front of the books     on the shelf

 

where we’ve Dewy Decimaled the fiction                 in the face

of vainness and           punctuated endings.