Speech in a Blender

What flavors can you glean
from the wine can you reverse it
into grapes? The open earth
seeded or tainted with our mother-
love. Mary had a little
blame, floral printed fingertips. 
In a dream we were running
naked through Thailand.

Dig your trench
with a spork, slip the dirt
into hypodermic needles.
Fairytales evolved from desires
to bake and eat children
then throw ugly men off bridges. 
I am building a contraption
to suspend disbelief and you
will live there and I
will visit.

Children are born every year
in poppy fields. Ring around
the cheekbone, a pocket
full of lashes.
There was a girl here—
how long ago? She bound
her own white wrists
so she could pray.
I never memorized
the Act of Contrition but I cried
when I lost my yellow umbrella
and isn’t that enough?

I know my age by counting
the wrinkles on my knees.
Prayers rupture to become
ripe lemons. They don’t keep track
of who we are or how many
gods we can name. 
The faithful stampeded
when the bridge began to sway.

The glittering through the trees
is just more cars. 
I am on my way to partake
of your mourning.
We are human because sadness
attracts us. We need stories
even when a girl
is turned into reeds
and picked.

She chews the edge of her
ego-bubble, dresses
only in plaid chiffon. 
Marks on her skin from the time
she mistook herself
for an assailant.
Thunder thunder little cloud
the people crossing the bridge
have been turned into birds.

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Jessica Beyer has an MFA in Poetry from New York University and a BA from Emory University. Her poems have appeared in MiPoesias, The Anemone Sidecar, Lyre Lyre, decomP, and others. She lives in Baltimore.