Almost Ghazal for Broken Girlhoods / Aubade for Our Re-opening

Almost Ghazal for Broken Girlhoods

Buttoned into bouncing mouths, wif
counts echoes before crossing, for wif,

for wiping her hands into hourglasses,
say forget this picture, say wif

with more teeth, veil of sand
funneling itself into woman: wif.

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Aubade for Our Re-opening

Inside, the walls’ swinging hides
wagged themselves into sunlight. I stretched
my pretty tongue into a blossom and husked off
the petals welling up at the roof
of my mouth. They ensnare each other mid-air;
skirt of tousled bones; It is true,
they say, that this city is
beyond remembering.
In class, we once traced words
onto the fine engines
sputtering from each other’s skulls. A greeting,
a clean shot slung from between forked
palm lines. This August, we will
be muffled by plexiglass caps. For now, I soften
the belly of my mask with soil, dreaming
of the kicks of undead flowers.