DIANA MARIE DELGADO

Solomon’s Blanket

I suspect you’d enjoy a more subdued me, but all verse goes on too long and I like
the place I inhabit. I want your lovely jaws open.

Violets germinate twice a year, some without water.

Sooner or later, they'll drop me in the vat.

What I’m saying is although I participate in grave cleaning
            and judgment,

things pace inside until someone nicks my forehead
with a chisel—except it’s not that gentle.
 
Who does this to me, I forget, but let’s delve into that life where children
starved while you stood on the roadside mocking me.

I want Solomon’s blanket. I want a home
in a jar, a powder-blue typewriter to die on.

But that was years ago, when I believed in soap and forgiveness,
in something I could wash.