Lizzy Burnam 🐞

     1. GYPSIES
The pumpkin vine has sprawled across soil, 
tightly knotted buds of pale canary 

colors warbled in tune with forest thrum. 
A squirrel knocks twice and then moves on. Stock-still

in between moments, earful moments, beats 
of careful questions; Who’s there? Who’s home? Who?

Maybe she was searching for simpler fruit—
and sunk herself with bourbon over bone. 

     2. MIRRORS
An empty glass jar tossed into the trash;
it shatters and makes room. To mourn is to

masquerade as more than two idle hands 
made to dance like shadows on the wall. 

The camera flash briefly reveals the blood
seeping from a cut the shape of teeth. God,

she says, look at yourself. She tugs a clot 
of hair from the drain and twists the handle. 

     3. CLOCKS 
The windows here are black and bolted shut.  
The doctors keep the seasons to themselves, 

but when they visit, they track rain and mud
across the floor. Bleach baths for sleeping ghosts 

who’d kill for clean, who have veins the color 
of sirens and bramble beds overgrown. 

She cannot feel the break she needs to feel. 
She begs me for a pencil to borrow. 

     4. HEIGHTS 
Just silos and smokestacks from here to home. 
But at least there’s always the shortcut, or

the ultimatum: Freeze in time or find
the needle worth loving through the fire. 

No more, she says. I love you, but no more. 
Even the sticky anodyne of plums and plum-like 

bruises couldn’t fix it. Seventeen shards 
of looking-glass self, but only one eye. 

     5. CAGES 
It is raining for the first time in June. 
Her long, dark hair braided like toasted bread. 

She unfolds an old beige sweater. Chorus 
of moths, dust, and cotton. She holds her head. 

She says, I know. 
She says, like sweet corn and barbecue. 

And she sways for a long time by her bed.