for Steven
You can write for yourself, of course
Cut a handsome soup
Vegetables from your garden
On some day when your nose runs at the sight
Salt-dusted mountains at the window
Running the blade through the rind, thinking of
The Devil on the screen, orange like napalm
Looming over his shoulder in an old photograph
The way the knife sits calmly in its work
The way affection can drain from a face like color
The way hunger teaches the wolves – Oh!
Look what a mess I’ve made here!
Look at my mangled hands!
Look at my botched heart!
Poetry is not therapy. It can be simple
as attention to the cut.
Break your poem like a heart
and paint.