when the soil rests on top

by Katie Prince

to smother            just add a lisp to        mother

-hood

  o hissing woman

                                                you snake

                                                eve you fill

                                                                        the room even as corpse    or legend:

the woman stifling               the women             stifled         the want

during the earthquake I hid               in a doorway

you were crushed

                                                under         falling beams         shoddy crafts-

manship

                                 this house we did not build

                 roof floating down                  that tree you loved in autumn          those orange

maple      leaves

your smashed thigh ooze                     thick      &    slow

a cacophony of bone

before the earthquake I smothered   you with my love, after

I suctioned out the guts

         drying skin a rubber mask     stretched      to meet my needs

                                                I stuffed your skull with sawdust

your chest and forearms      a scarecrow     a safety

a surety

                                 after

                                                the earthquake      you might have been alive

but not for long I

promise

  I did not shoot you to put you out    of your misery. I hung

you out to dry

& rebuilt                                        tonight I lather up                velvet host to

                                                                                                        all my little lumps & splinters

I rest my head against a chest

                                                                                 a quickening               a beat

                 you     sliver into me