Breadcrumb #69

JOANNA C. VALENTE

I. 

The skies cannot blur
even when you squint

& remember too many trees
in your parent’s backyard, once

a breath away & I have stopped
breathing

& there is no gelatinous
sunset to bring me back & raise

my bones to a place where I'm
found except humming on the tip

of your tongue as you sleep
hearing sounds of stinging where

flesh on flesh swirls into shells
tilting milky necks.

II.

In a shaft of moonlight, a voice
your voice

wedges beneath rusted garden
tools hidden in the basement

& there is nothing in my mouth
except for absence of fingers—

a lake night-filled with your body
playing a concert for Mickey Mantle

& the ghost of a girl on victrola
who says she found you, a red

orchid, growing out of a sea-foam
green Chevy unguarded & silent

as clouds drifting together in
the shape of a ribcage, no blood

& the sunlight shifts & breath begins
in unison.

• • •