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Christmas Dinner
The lines of your arm,
like the lines of a woman,
pinpricked and allergic.
A parasite,
snacking on the disc that rides on the backs of elephants she saw marching in a line
like the girls she watched from the window.
A family quilt,
stretched and pinned.
Splintering like the doll I used to start your heart.
He stuffed a ghoul inside your mothers crock pot;
the one with the peppers painted on the side.
Laymen, swaddled in sea foam green
and their breath smells like toothpaste .
Rubbing molten latex on your sacred cyst
filled with baby pink puss.
Contort into a butterfly
only to crinkle paper.
Doused in scented oils I used to clean your grandmothers hair.
A raspberry rascal pulls at the corners of your mouth;
forging a depression to match the one between your legs,
to match the one on yellow carpet.
Turning you into a banshee
sweet with the salt that your mother lounged in.
Berry coloured streaks run along the sides of you like they ran across the hospital bed.
It's left you topheavy
and bathing on a roof,
back turned to King David.
