Knocked-Down Homes, Burned-Out Hearts

The season brings knocked-down homes, replaced
with burned-out hearts we can burrow into. Make a nest
for ourselves and sleep for months. The accommodations
would be a fine place to curl up into. Won't you host us?

We don't ask for much, just a place to keep us warm.
Maybe a cocktail before bed. Simple creatures demand
simple lives; we are no different. We demand a room
for rent. Somewhere to get the mind right, the body clean,

the needs serviced. Though they may be simple, our needs
are many. Care for us, beautiful girls and beautiful boys,
and we will buy you a wedding, or a rent-to-own bed.
We can treat you all like saints or burdens. Friends

or paper dolls. We can tie you down to four stanzas,
locked to sixteen lines, so you can't bother us ever again.
And maybe we'll take you out every so often, just to say
hello. To say: we used to live there, but that was forever ago.

On Reflection

There was a time when you
were enough. You were built

to love and you owned me.
When the honey dried,

when the season

changed, there was a time
when the idea of you was enough.

Something to get me through
the day, like a kind word

from a stranger; a moment

of accidental contact. A hand.
A stray hair. The small comforts

could only replace so much.
I wasn't made to love you,

but my wires got crossed.

[Broken hearts don't exist, for the organ...]

Broken hearts don't exist, for the organ
cannot be snapped. It's a pulling kind, a motion
that wears out wrists and jaws. The rip

is the new break. A tear mark, like a dark
spot in an open chest cavity. Broken hearts
don't exist, as much as we'd like them to.

We've never been ones for stitchwork,
the slit is too small to work with. Our fangs
would do the job just fine,

but we've been warned. Eating our own
stupid hearts went fine until
we filled up. Floating and drunk

off wine from our living vessels.