1 

for your adoration, a woolly mammoth,
intact with its last meal— 

all that unprocessed sugar, tucked in the
​cold wok 

of its belly, like your rage 
inside me, waiting 

as though waiting is a form of listening.

2 

start with a question, 
how many woollys can dance on a petal? 

this is not a question 
of strength 

but one of placement: 
do you know how to place your tongue 

on a petal & lick all the way 
to a lisp? 

Eating is how sibilance ends. 

3 

is there a place in Dante's hell for the
algae that eat light 

and beget this world one bone marrow
at a time 

even if the bone gets shucked dry like
someone playing a flute 

wrong? 

4 

i am 

made of grief rings & saturn, 
slice me with a butcher's knife to locate

the moment I was ghosted.
tell me love, 

when the soul burns, does it leave
​a residue?
summa iru happened when the poet came across Rilke's Book of Hours. The rest, as they say, is a dog whistle.