“often we pay homage to appropriate moral sentiments while our real feelings drift elsewhere.”

do you remember how warrant’s cherry pie starts

with the dirty, rotten, filthy, stinking, rich!

shout?

whaaat?

then what do you remember?

the uncut elephant grass in your backyard?

how it made you see green

when I let you fondle my breasts?

white as winter.

“they’re so white they’re blue,” you said.

or maybe it was someone else who said.

when it comes to memories

mammaries

things are as slippery as, you’ve guessed it,

newly cut grass.

how did I make my wimple?

carton ripped out of a birthday cake box

snowman round tip permanent marker——rouge (vor kindern sicher aufbewahren!——did they mean the places I frequent?)

and a little bit of that je ne sais quoi, mon amour.

in the morning the floor was caked

with processed flour, dirt, and blood from your cut lip.

we kept the faith

as we promised

we did

——but no one saw it.