"The Narrows"

If you're planning on vanishing, you telegraph,
holding my fist, leave hard.
Leave hypersonic.
I'm brim weary of your spooked
prance. But I'm too fat and fraudulent
for that. For last night
and my plea,
once again unmet,
for your husbandly thighs, their sandstone
and codex. And for this too pearl morning,
our daughter
with a swallowtail's antenna that shudders, bend-breaks
as she slides
her matchbox closed. Silent witchery. Such casual
harm. I want to be fished
from this airstream
by a picturesque giant, his slingshot aquiver,
and then buttered
with petals. A close second: I snuff crumpled butterfly
with ether, a merciful slaughter.
To ensure observation's
remote kiss. Our child
strokes wings' lemon powder, rubs
dull iridescence on my cheeks,
lips. The nourishment of decadence,
its comfort just before
an end.

--Corinne Lee