GEORGIA

I find love at the end of the world 

I imagine we’re on the train bound for Georgia

someplace I can mend him press my lips against his forehead as if I were made of light and 

the marmalade his mother used to make

Smudged dog tags and monsoons rest against his collar 

His knuckles made busy with war clenched around shoplifted soap 

           Sun and hibiscus  

His eyes are half shut eyelids          lead that forced him to his knees in a field 

Gunshots lay the air to waste sweetly as if the two were lovers 

And I’m reminded of us 

I imagine he’s asleep murmuring of swampy summers

A greyhound’s breath swallows me whole           venison and milk behind a soldier’s teeth  

   My baby’s a soldier 

I press my face into his neck        charred flesh and pine devour my tongue 

My baby’s a statistic 

I find love with a body sent home in a box

leaking out sun and syrup into birchwood

Hands curled crescent around his heart 

as if it were a peach