Flourishing | poem

At night, the jaw disconnects from my skull

And flies out to join bats in the trees.

(I wonder if you’d like me more as a skeleton, segmented and

Without scent or sense or perspective or all this goddamn hair.)

I think you despise the pink in my cheeks, so

I’ll slice them from my face and trade cypress for pine.

I know you prefer the flourishing hips of an aspen, so

I’ll wrench the stem out from under me and sell it to the trees.