All around town, the bricklayers bury the roses.
The railroad kids graffiti the train cars

making them to look like ancient metal elephants
linked trunk to tail, on and on. The kids rattle cans of paint,

but it is their heart-sounds that are louder. Emitting a past
curfew kind of creaking. Being in love this long has made me realize

maybe I am not kind by nature like I was raised to believe.
Unable to make those around me happy through sheer will

only. Mary Shelley kept a lock of her husband’s hair and
a piece of his formaldehyded heart wrapped in one of his poems.

Would cry at night over the black bounty. But sometimes
salt shrinks the heart the same way a snail. And crying

is as useful as a sock of soap. Which party gets to sigh
in relief after the beating? Even now, the sound of plates

being thrown against the wall of our garage. A new
coping mechanism the therapist recommended.

Of all the opposites I’ve been holding, this one is heaviest.
That around the corner from us, there is always

a street parade ending or a garlic factory on fire.
The smell amazing, but the damage expansive and irreversible.

Of my own coping? It’s negotiable. Depends on which
serial killers have just been I.D.’d after years quiet in Wyoming.

Depends on how cool the air is after a good rain.
Would pull out my own heart, shave off small slivers

for keepsakes if it could guarantee you remembering me.
Surely this is how you bury the stars that won’t clash

loud enough to make planets. Surely this is how you observe
the darkness without trying to set it on fire.

Jessica Hincapie

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