i grind your name in a stone bowl, mortar-slick with

mother’s spit. saltwater & silt. i say it thrice. call it clean

magic. call it famine. 

grandmother taught me this — 

how to steep want like bitter melon tea, how

to stitch a woman’s shadow 

into the soles of your feet, so she 

follows you home drunkblind

on the perfume of your absence. 

once, she carved love from pig bone,

buried it under the bed so her lovers 

never left. when they died, 

their teeth were green with rootrot. 

so i do it softer: i sew her hair 

into the lining of my sleeves, 

tie knots with red string between my teeth, wrap

peach pits in silk 

& sleep with them under my tongue. 

they say if you plant a seed in the mouth it

flowers obsession — 

so here i am, thorn-throated, honey-rot,

spitting petals each time i say her name. 

by morning i’ll have peeled you like fruit. your

hands will smell of iron & salt. 

you’ll dream of me kneeling in wet earth —

fingers wrist-deep in the throat of a grave, singing: 

so be it — 

like a curse. like a prayer. 

like love done right.