Cassandra Carter
Home Remedies with Concave Instruments
I can’t stop cutting my feet
The skin in the corners, the nails growing crucifixion crooked
The after-Patroclus-is-murdered Achilles heels
I use pear knives on the wrinkles
Fresh car keys on the arches
Pink machetes on the parts I can’t name
I cut them smaller and thinner, into uglier shoes
I think about cutting them at night
On the moon with garden shears
My toe blood freezes, doesn’t sticky carpet to carpet
My toe blood is a dead pond, doesn’t ocean or sea
There is so much toe blood, hiding
Waiting to be cut out
Garden of You
I.
I bathe among the roses
waterfalling from your mouth
You are so lovely now,
and practical, strung by spine
into the spigot above
my claw tub
II.
Violets bloom from your wrists
each morning, fresh and dewed
with blood perfumed and lush
Deep purple in my oatmeal
Plucked local from bedroom garden
of you
My physicians say my heart
has never beat better
III.
I do not skin your throat
apples. Flesh so supple
and crisp my teeth leak
red and pale and drunk
You are so delicious now,
and healthy. Good for
my heart and jaw
IV.
Your sunflowers grow
curled into my bed,
thanking me
Always the gracious gardener,
I tongue open
your seeds
Motel Art
Upon cracking
your skull
open,
I find
your brain,
wrinkled,
like a rose.
