you call me.

you call me a faggot.

you call me words my grandmother

would not speak to her enemy.

you say, you do not deserve ripe

cheese, you cry tears that are

raw.  

i see flowers on the stove,

the oven is baking sourdoughbread,

it is being made by my mother,

the woman who destroyed

her womb to heal me.

you call me a liar.

you feed me to the wolves, the lions

in their dens, and your old girlfriends

who know nothing of the suffering

in afghanistan,

or the pain of being in surgery

for forty-eight hours straight.

you call me a cunt, the words

slow and loud, drifting down from

thunderclouds.