Avery Island

Assume you'd won. I was a heap
by the coat hanger. I was a mute whistle
from a cracker. So I was
shattered bone. So I was
milk-toothed lie,
sputtered like spaghetti
from a broken pot.

A small man sang so sadly
from my laptop.

Elsewhere,
a storm gathered.

Gently, storm-blood bloom
of cloth. Your soap-worn
hands. The way rough hands
had this choked way
of being soft.

I wanted to break into
untraceable pieces; I was
too small. You kept on saying
I was much too small.

Assume I tried to hug
a hurricane. Tried to tuck a shadow
in trite weather. "Try and try,
even if it lasts an hour-"

The evening was too calm,
charmed past bedtime-
car-rush, wood and wall. Believe
me, I would have been
dead.