Lunchbox Poems

I must be someone

with very short arms to have lost you,

to be checking the windows

of the pawnshop renting space in my head,

which pounds with all the clarity

of a policeman on my southernmost door.

To wish and not jinx it: to wish

and not fish for it: to wish and forget it.

To ratchet myself up with hot liquid

and find a true surprise.

Prowling the living room for the lightning,

just one more shock,

to bring my slow purity back.

To miss you without being so damn cold

all the time. To hold you without dying otherwise.

To die without losing death as an alternative.

To explode with flesh, without collapse.

To feel sick in my skeleton, in all the serious

confetti of my cells, and know why.

Loving you has made me so scandalously

beautiful. To give myself to everyone but you.

To luck out of you. To make any other mistake.

BRENDA SHAUGHNESSY