I wear a hair shirt   coarse strands scratch 
my nipple   my belly streaked in blood

channels to the dead   stinking gullies where 
bones winter & turn to chalk 

your picture draped black

in an ivory basin   I soak widow weeds 
to cool my raw chest

at the Princess Theater 
you follow me    up wrought iron stairs

we climb high   Peter Pan flies near   in alto 
calls the boys 

Wendy cries on stage for Peter   you lean over 
pluck his cap & somersault down

wearing cut offs & a Mother Jones t-shirt 
you flip eggs over hard   angling 

the cast iron inches above fire   home 
fries sizzle   you burn your fingers 

I rub vitamin E over blisters   wrap 
them in a wet cloth   Cherry Ames you giggle

& stretch across my honeycomb quilt   spitting 
up words like sour tree roots

the ones I tasted after six hours of Adriamycin
liquid gold pouring through veins 

into Artemis Pond   moon underfoot    
my white-tailed doe   lying still in a stand of cypress   

Too old to love again   you say as I wake