house made of ghosts and small animals
       

For every love song, there is a broken dove skeleton
rotting in the eaves. A leaving, that requires
nothing but the door opening and closing just once.
A heaviness of suitcases and floor lamps and
record albums piled awkwardly in the trunk.
You see, my motives are mud dark, made oflarkspur
and longing. Soon you will find me replacing each dish
and hairbrush in someone else's house, replacing
p with q and mucking up the quick exit. Will find me
ravenous and bleeding beneath the weedy undergrowth.
For every broken promise, I give you a rin~ of roses.
A prolific number of tiny mice inhabiting the baseboards.
Animal, vegetable, mineral.

The terrible goblin heart of my goodbye.

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Copyright © 2016 Kristy Bowen All rights reserved
from salvage
Black Lawrence Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission