61 Lovers

I make lovers out of paper dolls.
I cut them until they bleed all over me.
I cut them into silence,
like the abattoir animal
who smells their brethren in the floorboards.
I lock the dolls in a box,

an odd-shaped box,
and tell them, Lie little dolls,
shut off your feet from floorboards
before you step all over me.
They think I’m an animal.
Their fear moves in silence.

Bless this silence.
I open the box
and take out each new animal.
They look up with their doll’s
eyes. Make them stop staring at me.
Oh God, their hooves on floorboards…

I am sawdust on floorboards.
I am silence.
They press their wooden pearls into me.
My body is a box
stitched with a doll’s
heart cut from the inside of an animal.

One says, You’re an animal
who colored the floorboards
with your sawdust dolls.
Now bleed for me.
I own no silence
as he unbuilds my box.

He takes my voice from me,
empty as an animal,
then locks me in a box
that he buries under floorboards
where I’ll prey in silence
on my many dolls. 

Don’t take my dolls from me.
I’ll turn from silence into animal.
I'll break floorboards like a toy box.