KNACK
iii. at seventeen you have cannibalized the meaning of intimacy at the foot of his bed, pulverized closeness like smashed pistachios you taught him to sleep upside-down in Februarythe most dreary of months
iv. cabinet crushing you imagine them to avoid the caricatured eyeballs leering from behind the barista bar as cabinet crushing exploding from all ends of the oak panels, their bindings intact and the sheets fluttering in the still air, dancing, as monarchs do, raving wild and freed from the nets of small children oh the sheets, they smell so fine –
12
shaved strips of burning wood –