Things I Will Probably Never Say To My Imagined Child

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Listen to me when I speak to you, my sudden slice of person.

Your skin is only a stretch of land sanctioned by the first light

your eyes blink away from. My common miracled thing,

let the village women burn sage over you rocketing limbs —

tremble to a pink meat, scrape your fingers on their wooden

teeth. Their love songs aren’t for you love. Be a sk8er boi

rock chick, gal-dude — my sweet gendered nuisance. Be an empty

parking lot at night. Whole into dumb a nothing, my blue-glass

smithereen. Be the spooky-eyed cousin to the dangers you

were born with. My totally normal angel, be cool like your mother.

Wreck havoc my slinky boomerang — learn to juggle, learn to hustle

learn to wipe your own ass by age five. Find a galaxy to shoot tennis

balls at. I hope they float back to you, a mouthful of lightbugs.

Come here my moonbodied half-body, beautiful is nothing important.

I hope you see a volcano one day, my honey glazed torpedo, I hope

lava flames from its hot bloated gut before setting the sky completely

on fire and it reminds you of me.