I thought I glimpsed in the bush a black eyed 
child but it was a bomb. I tried to kiss her before
 
she detonated but I was her gun. Her teeth broke 
—chandelier droplets fell to the soil between us, yellow 

pearls detonating under my touch. I ached to save 
us both, so I gauzed her mouth under the applause 

of rain but the gauze was blood. I wrapped blood 
in blood. Child, I whispered, they’ve taken the light… 

I was a mother once...There are bees in the milk...
I could not pick a way to say all I’d seen: 

Our willows stuffed with barbed wire, gunpowder 
dressed as wheat in sunlight, endless gallons of neon 

waste masqueraded as ocean and the women 
who bathed there daily till their wombs bloomed 

a wrong glow. They’ve taken the candlelight 
Jesus read by, buried a blade in the wax. I was 

a mother once, I knew how to get a swelling howl to 
drink. But now there are bees in the milk. I drank 

because I believed the cow. I drank until my lips were 
riddled with needles. Even love has a hidden knife.