We never talk about how 
	   we pry black walnuts 

from their husks 
	   with our fingers
 
just to watch the bitter 
	   kernels split into faces 

of owls, or how we took 
	   turns with thumbtacks 

until our fingers were 
	   Egyptian star cluster, 

ready for humming-bird tongues. 
	   How we pressed them together 

until they shut closed around 
	   the nectar, 

and we were sisters 
	   of the crop, drunk 

on each other’s sugar. 
	   When your mother 

wouldn’t let me come 
	   to your house, 

it’s not rejection 
	   that spread its wound 

over my body. 
	   I’m so in love 

with your silky corn rows, 
	   every bone in your thin wrists, 

I forgive you. 
	   When you come to school 

with bruises like feral irises 
	   because you fell down 

the stairs again, 
	   because you play hard 

with your brother, 
	   I trace my finger over 

each plum pit, name 
	   each lasting tenderness.  

When you pull my mother 
	   into the bathroom 

after school to show her 
	   the story of your mother 

forcing you onto 
	   your bed face-down, 

using her belt to finish you, 
	   I don’t see you again. 

I start climbing 
	   magnolia trees to touch 

tough carpals, 
	   to feel you surging.  

Now, dead to me, 
	   love obscures our next 

threshold. You’re not 
	   death’s wild-eyed solace. 

You’re nobody’s 
	   sweet insurgency. 

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