Rummy Park, 27
(Games Ghosts Play)

by Rebecca Lu Kiernan

I will crush the bones
Of your unearthly silence on this matter
To a powder, fine and glitter bright
As these sugar island sands.
I will feed you this
In the mint that kisses your lamb
In dreams of bistros,
Peppered in your picnic chicken memory
Of heliotrope.
I will keep some in a locket
So when your head rests at my chest
In the forest,
And when, in the desert,
You taste your own breath,
The flavor is returned.
I spoke to him on the ferry.
Your name wasn’t mentioned.
I kissed him in a dream,
Upside-down and backwards.
You weren’t there
Red faced in the closet with a knife,
The border between the two of you
So blurring,
You could not emasculate the alien
For the fear of unsexing the self.