The Bread We Eat in Dreams

and eat them

and feed them.

This is why I don’t get to be a unicorn.

Those ponies have clotted cream and Chanel No. 5 for blood

and they don’t burn up like comets

with love that tastes like starving to death.

And you, with your standup comedy knightliness,

covering Beowulf’s greatest hits on your tin kazoo,

you can’t begin to think through

what it takes to fill up a body like this.

It takes everything pretty

and everything true

and you stick yourself in a cave because

your want is bigger than you.

I just want to be

the size of a galaxy

so I can eat all the stars and gas giants

without them noticing

and getting upset.

Is that so bad?

Isn’t that

what love looks like?

Isn’t that

what you want, too?

I’ll make you a deal.

Come close up

stand on my emeraldheart, my sapphireself

the goldpile of my body

Close enough to smell

everything you’ll never be.