When I called my heart dark
hammering and your temper wild mint,
I made a mistake. I should have said

what I meant: the sucked orange

is not a symbol or the deer nipping
shoots outside the missile site.

It’s not the year of the rat or the year of the snake

and the fat, yellow moon, despite what I whispered
at the top of the stairs, is only the moon.

I have no kinship with steel,
no understanding of clouds.

My family is becoming
a bucket of teeth

but numbers are more exact than words.

This table, this chair: I forgot
to describe this table, this chair.

Strike the word mother wherever you see it.

50 and 6.

Rip those pages out.