come seamsters, prophets, fishwives, men. millers and their moth familiars. many-handed avatars of the aunts I never call. and my mother in the chipped cup. my mother in my first gray hair. I'll be the one in the green kaftan, dragging on my prop pipe and coughing luxuriously. I'll be the one courting neutered nouns like suppository, suppository, whole walls of them twinkling like torched stars. brûlée me, I'll say. tell me what you really think of my dog my lawn my terracotta owls. say it just so.

you'll know me when you see I'll be the one to open the door. come in, I'll say. I've got a cheese plate. I've got every slice of quince from here to Nome. and god in the microtome. and god in the space between shoulders if I breathe just so.