i. expired-baby-powdered skin, velveteen

sunspots & weathered but i must love

her: “darling, you know i love you.” hard hickory wood

candy-cane shaped, the sun beats down & i hear cracking of bones

mine or our small deceased puppy, her delicate brumal body obedient

even in black-trash-bag tomb death, i don’t know. but i must love

her: because she is my father’s mother.

ii. unknowingly lemon juice

washes my bitten fingernails clean

of ensanguined sins: pleasurable dreams of movie-star women

“we don’t believe in god,”

this is your holy water.

iii. but rather my hands splayed towards the sun grow moldy & spotted;

millions of tapioca pearls for eyes engraved upon my hands; blinded,

hallowed smiles embellished on polka-dot upon polka-dot

you are your mother’s daughter, i am your daughter, cut paper dolls passed down & down

“you are not my daughter. no daughter of mine slaps the face of the heavenly father & ardently

disobeys him by sleeping with another woman”

& you tell me i had it coming, god is finally punishing me for

not closing my eyes when we pray, because i don’t see the point in bowing my head

in submission when i thought my meek whispers would be enough

i thought he would love me anyway.

iv. “i still want a grandbaby,”

i hear him acrimoniously: i hear the undertones of him absolutely howling inside the soft

breakfast mush of parochial brain matter: cinnamon plantains & red bean soup.

true intentions are enveloped in bitter-tasting pills & beer inside

that brain i have the honor of inheriting & i wonder if he would change

his mind if he ever decided to know me, someone

etched with other people’s stains, hammered into malleable corpse

& so to the little copper basin masked as divine platinum, to the exalted solution held within

i pour into a shot glass, & you watch me brand your holy water no longer holy.