by Allison Burke

I hoped to build my nest with you,
and weave our basket bed from books
assigned to us
to read for grades the years
when we would wreck our eyes; the
years we fought about Cobain and
I was reading up on guns,
the attic possibilities
of staving off
the killing need;

the years my thoughts were
on my legs, they whispered, lines
of scabbing caught
in catalogs of perfect rooms; in prom
dress satin; all my longing
that recalling you would
sound like turning paper, folding
hands;
but you will know the withered phrase-
it’s burning dead leaves all the time,
my vicious, vicious heart.