A Black Eye, a Dripping Iris

On the wall in my closet I have

Hung you up like a rag

Sometimes like a bright blanket

I have kept a cherished secret

Always you burn so wildly in there

Behind the thickets

Behind the blackberry bushes

You are a blackberry that is too ripe

Too ripe

Too ripe too ripe

You are something I have suppressed

Kneaded accidentally into a paste that sticks

to the roof of my mouth

Every time I move my tongue

I touch you just a little bit

And I jump from the voltage and

I remember how your words

Are wet knives

How the things you do are

A cancer in the kitchen

If only I could remember the things

Wedged under your fingernails

If only I could forget the things

You once wedged with your

Hot words into my spine

Where you always burn subtly

Where you always burn