Cinnamon

Blood in my throat

wastes time. I'm lying.

I frankly don’t care if he finds me!

My mouth sounds, my body sounds.

*

Find anything else. Look at the red sky

when the sun bleeds for him. I can

have what wasn’t for me, I can have it.

*

Each cut has its own name

I mutter under my breath

*

as the fire pit crackles. Soot

between the browned leaves

*

does not remember September,

that man in the picture of the farm

before the smoke

*

but I take what the sky gives

and what it won't let me have.

Every bite, the unripe windfall apple.

Despite everything, I do miss him terribly.