This Picnic is a Wreckage

The crack of the blanket laid out flat is an unsheeting. 

We sit cross-legged atop our makeshift raft & bob in the grass.
Drown beneath a shared history. A merciless sun. 

Here, the comfort of a green apple’s shine. Perfect polish. 
My thumb’s irrepressible desire to crater.

Suck at the bruise. 
Siphon the pulp.

We talk about entropy & the threshold of unleaving.
About poetry books orphaned at sea after a plane crash.

I admit I’m afraid of digging around in my pockets. 
Of touching the underside of velvet. Of leaving it unfelt.

If regret was an animal.
If remorse was a planet.

I think about every remedy I ever copied down & never used.
I think about the moth that hovers at the porchlight after nightfall.

I’ve been told to never answer a question I’ve just posed.
But if I know the answer, I’ll let you have it.

When to whisper.
When to scream.

When to use the word tumultuous. Tempestuous. Turbulent.
When I speak, I speak to ruin. Though never face-on, like the wake of a ship.

Sharpness is a quality of the tongue if you’re lucky. If you’re unlucky.
I confess to the salt. The brown-shelled snail. Watch you closely.

Abandonment.
Abandon ship. 

When you speak, you speak in balm. Nothing left unsoftened.
Even cruelty’s made curiosity. Unforgiveable forgivable.

The sun finds a new angle. You reapply sunscreen. 
I say that time is wicked. You say it’s still a friend.

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