i.

you say she ate you

i wager you imagine

yourself devoured whole
ready to emerge

again — insatiable
conversely she can

be disarticulated

into teeth eyes legs
those bodies always

make for violent metaphor


   ii.

if you can hear it

‘please let me be unpleasant’

is a kind of prayer —	
a petition for

allowance of exhaustion
who gets to relax

without being reduced? — god

help me sometimes i
find myself saying

‘i love you’ when i’m alone


   iii.

if efficient as a fish

monger i could strip 
the scales from my eyes —

i might lose this double-sight

and this double-speak
if you caught that fish

could you wish for compassion?
i ration it out

so every bit of me is

a commodity