lemon, water, salt, paper, ink, silence, silence

With a knife, open the lemon until its voice blooms. Then, write
the name on paper. Crumple it into quiet.
 
                        To cover his crimes, the man turned my name into a ghost
                        story. There are only so many ways to say he put his hands
                        on the waxing crescent of my ass. That many have done the same—
 
                        the wasted writer who tried to hide the bonfire smoke
                        of his roving hands, or the boss who told me to bend over.
 
Snow the salt flakes into the wound to cleanse
the named of their transgressions. Let it burn and sing.
                       
                        Easier to talk shit than own up to it, meat with a label
                        slapped on for sale. I am no more mine than a tree
                        marked with an orange X at the forest’s edge.
 
                        After the touch comes the talk. The she said. The she
                        is a tart. The she is no good for you, man.
 
Say, take my name from your mouth. Conjure
the named with no tongue.
 
                        I am spoiled fruit sunning in the dumpster. Leave me
                        long enough—you’ll get drunk off the sweetness.
                        Every spell melts in time. Listen:
 
                        when I am most angry, I whisper, I hope
                        you see yourself. The kindness of the hush.
 
Snuff the lemon in cold water, then freeze it. Come spring,
bury the ice in the earth. Don’t listen if it speaks.

—Caitlin Cowan

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