Break Glass to Extinguish

Killing is a thing we do in measure,
One by one. The sunflower first –

We display in bit-lip pride to
Relatives and company come full

Starch. Aunts look on its molding
Vertebra for laughter, clutched

And clawed at, like the end of last
Year’s favorite anecdote. Friends

And other visitors pinch
Browned and barnacled leaves

For souvenirs to say we’ve grown
A thing that would not live.

The dog with its own unmatched
Skeleton is something more

Of a loosed grenade. The stitching
Of its pink and slept with elephant

First must separate
To reveal the powdery tooth fillings

That birds will use in winter
To cushion themselves against an

Over and over cold spell. The food,
In heaping handfuls of anything already

Dead, must wrongly expire. A holocaust is
Where we fit our hands

Around that hound’s pinched middle
With our increasing tightness until the only

Weight is what emptiness can
Be amassed inside one once alive

Creature. We clean the bones in
White vinegar and, with dried beans,

Fill to whole one milk jug to make songs
For the funeral parade and home again.

The sound is steady beating like a year
Lived to end in any unloved place.

When I’m lucky – in dreams,
Alone – nine or so lovers

You took once or longer
In various seasons of summer

Or rain and all the unofficial
Women you pressed in fantasy or

Memory onto the pages of one
Red notebook, perfectly bound,

Make lovely, arching swan dives
Off of cliffs and rooftops or

Any other precipice high enough to turn
A stomach into circles within its own

Casing. Their necks go cracking and skin,
And I am free of them enough to stretch

Awake in sheets that must be
Burned to unfasten their mistake.

And love, when it comes time for its
Undoing, is not nearly half the trouble.