my mother, the purist, says people in love don’t need props

is a threat
of slamming chests
or brushing shoulders

getting close to someone
you'll never know

everything is a love poem
if you twist your arms behind your back,
cut your hair,
scrape the skin off your heels with a nail file.

everything is a love poem
if you are dizzy, drunk
slamming into walls,
falling asleep under hot rain in the shower.

lemon yogurt: white like new shoes before
spring, with little clumps of yellow sun.

lemon yogurt: you eat with a spoon meant
for tea, when your fingers shake, the
white slips from you mouth, I kiss
the coming spring from your lips.

a few things floating
between my toes:
all the places I've been, like

doctor peeling open stomach of caveman,
blackberries in her hands
indicate death at the bottom of some mountain.