BRAINS
You didn’t have any
that Sunday afternoon
at the family table—your chain-
smoking father, too weak
to tend his backyard garden,
still masculine enough to want
to rip that necklace from your neck,
in silence he slid the first slice
onto my plate and waited for me
to eat the one thing I told myself
I’d never eat—I swallowed
the bite whole. Here, I was
the foreigner. I was your guest.
ECLIPSE
The bird moved when I moved.
It was like a klonopin, it slept
between my breasts—opened its eyes
only when I peeked inside my shirt
and let in light.
