did not get made tonight for my mini lava
cakes,
paleo-diet-friendly treats for PMS,
because the holder for
the nitrous oxide
bullet was missing from
the box. You are
outside building a
chicken coup
so that I can have
hormone-free eggs
for this new menu that is
annoying
everyone in a house full
of carb lovers.
Things that do not go
unnoticed:
how you give me
everything I mention
wanting, construct from
wood
first one, then another
deck to make
my swimming pool
something more
of an oasis, to make a
home
for foul to roost and
produce perfect
eggs. I am ovulating
twice a month,
shedding my unfertilized
yolk, bleeding
too little to ease the
twisting pain.
My sons are growing like
the clover
that has taken over the
bed
of lilies, their orange
strangling
on too little sun, too
much rain.
Our gladioli rotted in
the ground, never stood
a chance of reaching
vertical, purple
blooms that stretched
skyward last year,
a distance that seemed so
short,
so perfectly possible
then.
The Road to Wraparound
Road
is a street cornered by
twenty-something’s
caught in the crosswalk
of adult and childhood,
an expectant, entitled,
self-centered populous
that does not know the
difference between
questions and their
answers, cannot recognize
the forest for the fallen
trees. Big pictures
elude them as they dance
from one diagnosis
to the next.
Collectively, our children are called
clients, cases, cause for
complaint.
We pass the most sacred
of gifts
to hands that know
nothing of loss.
We Meet Again in the Middle of the Night
Two strangers who have forgotten
what skin feels like on
skin in the dead
of winter, warmth to
share, steal, forgotten
the way two people can
fit together, fruit
can taste on hungry
tongues. I have
waited the length of four
loves and twice
as many bodies to find
you. Here you are
mine to discover tonight,
forget tomorrow.
April Salzano
