“fish to eat, January 2018”

It is winter again and again, rising fast

and I leave my single blue-paper bracelet

on the wood next to you, kissed by

uncles you’d only heard of. / uncles who

came when you found a single

broadsword in the cabinet and boasted

as the preschool X’s // scattered across your

arm in tactless inkless tattoo lines. you are

sleeping, merely so in a haze of the red

in-between you called your future home.

in the end /// we left you the fish and oranges

just beside the calla lilies, and they all slept

slowly and carefully alongside you, keeping

watch. //// keeping the one eye open dark.