Public Republic

Haley Crigger

Photo: Ruth L

I discovered the heart
of an absentminded wife, or husband

in the small cog of a
habit, still sipping behind

your back ribs with my sorry,
my tongue, the most obtuse muscle

–two tastes for busted candy,
flashed on a soft-spoken hood.

You spoke of bird dimensions, baby
chicks in metal spoons.

Let’s meet there. Where shallow water and
gravity work best to swallow feet,

under the kitchen table
as two unlikely trolls, after

the sigma of your preoccupation and
under the graphite of

please. Let’s meet between
the candles between

the meals we’re not having, the yellows
spilling out of holes

onto us.