you think: if I just bury the bitch
one day she may raise up again //

haunt not your nightmares,
but surface in your dreams
and worse,
his

instead, you two
dismember her together
on your walks
at your coffee table
in your marital bed //
until she’s dead

you cremate her in your pristine oven
collect her charred bones,
grind them to ash with your mortar and pestle from Sur La Table
dissolve a spoonful into your wine in secret, and drink it
the rest, you feed to your lilacs //

you think: she’ll never again be whole //

yet, her linger slowly poisons you and your home

and, she waits

like Isis

to collect her relics that you thought you could transmute and possess

her essence migrating into the strands of your wiry, brittle hair

and into the fragrant beautiful blooms and heart-shaped leaves just outside your door, that school children are so tempted to pluck

one night, as you sleep,

she clips and carries them off — clumps and bouquet — in a pouch fashioned from your favorite silk dress — made from the bodies of one thousand worms — to break the curse

while his phallus pulses crimson, like a beacon, erect and dripping with life from his dreams of her

as he sleeps,

she spits in his open, parched mouth
before she soars out

leaves him with an eternal, wet, delicious taste of her

don’t you know,

time folds

and

a dream phoenix never dies