Render tender the shoots
of evening, let us in the lettuce
light, fitful as fish pumping
fistfuls of razored air, jagged
saws: tsk-tsk, cut-cut. Gleaners
in the gloaming—fuck that.
I was starving and far too far
from any lavender heroics.
There’s a moment when
you realize the beloved baby’s
milky paste has long since
turned to shit, another when
the smell of any man fills
the closed-off room.
Many a time called in by dark,
called in by storm, I knew
full well who it was I comforted.
Little other breathing, nothing
to do but shape myself around you
like a shell in the ordinary night.