after Ocean Vuong’s “Essay on Craft”

Because the microwave

    lighting the evening

crept into my metaphor

                          without asking me

if I wanted to see. Because

after dinner we laid in Dad’s

pick-up like tranquilized cattle

          and no one came

to turn on the stars. Because I ran

            out of alliteration

after fleeing and freeing

          tied my tongue.

There’s a car in my neighborhood with the bumper sticker

“a little feral” and I think of how yesterday I sawed

off two slices of watermelon and let them drip disgusting

down my elbows. I catch myself sometimes: I forget

to sweep the corners on purpose or run a load of laundry

without soap. I press into the world’s chest—will it budge?

I didn’t know I loved my first boyfriend until I yelled fuck

you one night and he didn’t leave. I do this—I push back

like a palm in church. I didn’t know I loved God until he grated

the black night into my bowl and didn’t flinch when I threw up

a few stars.

that's what she said

the night they found

her throat in the alleyway

behind HomeSense, rolling

around in vernix

and blood. No time to call the doctor,

her jaw had simply hinged

open like a red tulip

on autopilot.  Rumor has it

this woman birthed

a voice the size of her life.