Estranged

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I’ll tell you about an old summer kitchen
with walls bared, brown and green, anything but stone

colored, the roof caved around the bread oven, and
its tall furnace, built to nest storks that bring good

fortune. I raised baby chicks there, long after
the storks were gone. I put down roots

there and spread like ivy over miles, drank pearl water
and ate the heart of a shark, grew teeth like razor

blades to gnaw at the walls of a prison-temple, broke
bread with a mountain lion from a forgotten crest. Tell me,

are my stories good enough? I’ll sing you a river-long poem
and braid lotuses in your hair, build you a hidden pavilion

where flamingos dance like horses on parade. I may
be hurting you. My fingers have combed mountains,

dug for rock treasure, hid it in their skin-cracks. Let me teach you
how to raise baby chicks between ruined walls, let me

pay no heed to the owls at dawn.