greenhouse

i’ve carved a room made of glass

jagged fabrication

built cloudy-gray webbed with cracks and wire frames to match

stickers of places; fields spilling with dreams

line the scratched panels

and find seams bursting with fraying thread

soaked leaves spring up from the ground

buzzing bees resting on intoxicating cotton swabs

swarming, stifling

delivered to ears with honey-infested words

i’ve dug down through the soil and made friends with the worms

the others—they say—

will come at me with knives

but gleaming silver whispers speak “otherwise”

overgrown—overflowing

bright green leaves 

that keep on going, going, 

going, laughing and dying 

reaching to the translucent rafters 

touching the ceiling from high-wire heights

memories lie

but paintings, 

paintings she promises, those have been inked over

over thousands of times

vines grow too tall to contain

too tall too tall too tall to cut down—

a fractured patchwork begins to unwind

one touch and it

Shatters