What litters the ashen cage

of what he calls me: limp

asters, lion’s mane, gold hoops

glinting in the diminished light

of dusk. I am unfamiliar

with the calmer face

of water, my temperament

more akin to steam—I boil,  

a wildfire tearing across

the ocean floor. He tells me:

there’s a kindness to rats

dying in plain sight, much better

for us that they’re seen.

He wrote me a poem once,

a bone-flower sonnet,

how it overflowed

with the presence of beasts.

Our neighbor plays organ music

in the alleyway—kneels bare-legged

in fields of broken glass.

Recently, blankets of gray snow,

flecked with petals

of deep crimson, have begun

to overtake my dreams.

Today, I woke up with sweat

rolling off me in icy beads,

the small of my back burning

in the place he placed his hand.

I pushed it off, & felt my skin

drop to a lower temperature,

a degree less smoldering,

a degree less enraged—