viselike grip, steel, etc

[aslant]

a dangerous evening. bed collapse, fitful blue hour in which i recalled every terrible previous blue hour. j came home late. belatedly in a dark room i choked on tea, hungry. unable & angry at comfort. & those imagistic destructions; being crushed by carving knives & forks, ground into a fine dust.

it isn't enough to make something tender
marry anything difficult.
there is nothing that cannot be made vicious, anymore.

-
doll

break it down
dead dry thing of straw.
push down on the ribs
so they compress like
clasped hands, folded fingers.
radius ulna humerous
tibia fibula femur
they're kindling. break in half,
stack them by the back door.
remove the bowl of hips & crack it
it never held a thing

nest the halves with the cranium,
imperfect egg, the liquids drain quickly.
the vertebrae stack is a trick:
telescope it down, careful
not to jam the mechanism.
all the little tarsals & metatarsals
can be crushed into a flour, with patience.
use nested patellas & scapulas to hold the leftovers.
for example, the heart,
which for sanitation purposes
we reccommend burning (to avoid contamination)
at high heat (you understand).

-

not sterling silver on china but stainless steel on glazed pfaltzgraf; that echoing scrape you hear down to your tooth roots that vicious
molecular shriek.