Helen Lehndorf

Spill It

Guttural, literal, a smash in the face. Figure it out.
She is violent in the way she accuses me of violence.
Our violence balances out. We are left in a room ringing
like a bell. An ear bleeding like a stuck pig. I always thought
that meant the pig was unable to move from underneath
a fence, but my Dad told me it means stuck with a knife,
which makes much more sense but is unfortunate
for the pig of my imagination.

Lady, there is nothing for you here. The food is burned.
The cat has cancer. Codling moth in the apple tree.
I don’t have your guts but I’ve got this weapon. It looks
like a woven thing. It looks like a mixing bowl. It’s a
nest, that fell in the wind, and the baby birds fell out,
and some sick kid skateboarded over them
but the nest stayed whole, and then a girl out walking
picked it up, carried it home, put it on a shelf.

That’s what it’s like. It has horse hairs, and dryer lint,
and it is caved in on one side. But it is still whole.
That’s how it looks. That’s what I have instead.