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by Alicia Fisher

God only knows how many people leave sticky notes for their dead, Pens pressed against
slump – shouldered memories.
We crawl into the safety of our sister’s slit wrists.
We soak in that nest of nerves.

I scream down the freeway in my criminal lingerie.
The horizon lowers its damp standards and I am still how many breaths away
From your last ?  I live in a blown fog.  I trace your face with
matches and hold
Your poems, their rivet written in the ash of my ire.

Since then — unbrushed teeth and sad mascara; the sold – out smudge
Of sunlight across my unawake; hair looped and stabbed by some sharp debt:
A paintbrush, a pencil — Sweetheart, tame those wild curls.
Come now, I am a member of the meat packers union, a milkmaid

Leaking sweet down the street.
Last night you came in and scattered
A fistful of teeth: they stood like little tombstones at my dreaming feet.
Who leaves sticky notes for their dead to read ?

You forgot your wine – stained books.  You forgot your baby daughter.
I still wait for the mail — your frantic news.  I still say your name and bury you.