Caramel Metal

Where you leave traces, I begin. Listen
to me: what you call scrap-yard, I call
foundry.

The weasel crawls around the outstretched
arm, perpetuating carnivorous trickster ways.
Where do our bones stop joining? You called
to me: beneath the body of lies, I heard pain.

Loyal to a fault, when the crack summons
I heed and it spurns me. But I swell
in the gloom, you say “I am nothing again,
nothing real enough for you to grasp onto.”

I try anyway, running fingers along
your scarred arms like they were sunshine.

When I am in your small domain, a little
apartment in Burlington, your ex-lover
tries to break in. I am an ex-ex-lover, maybe
less, but because of that I know how to survive,
I have the strength of returning.

When he tries to force in the door, I’m
frightened—though my body is stronger,
I could crush the grim boy in my hands.

Is this the scrap-yard you live in? I’ll melt
you down, plant you in a garden of forking paths.