by Antonia Klimenko

Where’ve you been?
Where’re you going?
What are you doing?
Who with?
How long?
What for?

He prunes back your favorite rosebush–
now a miniature bonsai`
This should have been your first clue

He plows through you like pulp fiction–
the next chapter is Poland
This should have been your first clue

He cross-examines your dreams–
some of them escape with only third-degree burns
This should have been your first clue

Later
he will probe holes in your stories
(the size of craters)
They all end badly

He will ask impossible questions
“And what have you done with the stars?”
for which you ponder improbable replies
“I had them for breakfast
when my back was turned”

He will remind you
he is there to remind you
your only safe alibi is death

The first clue is
there is no second clue

I tell him:
A quick strip-search of this poem
and you will find nothing
Even as I speak
I am eating my own words

One by one…
in reverse order–
the rose petals
the stars
the breadcrumbs in the forest.
One by one
they explode on my tongue
they dissolve into the darkness
that stumbles into night

Even as I speak
I am erasing every trace
every feature of my landscape
I am changing my name to Daisy
and I am moving to another town

It’s useless to question the moon…
better you interrogate the sun;