i.
She grips the bowl with her left hand,
pressing it into her side--
a toddler who's grown
drowsy,
tired of walking.

“Morning.”
This is a small dose,
non-lethal.

The recipe she has taped
to the inner pantry door calls
for two overripe bananas.

She has sat them on the counter
all week waiting
for them to turn.

There are fruit
flies circling the yellowed kitchen.
We know there is something sweet
and rotting here, ready
to be made into mush, buzzing
swatted away at.

The dial turns to 350,
I know how to prepare.
I know this scent and how the room fills
with oven heat.
I know,
this is how things are made.

With her right hand, she twirls
the whisk about the batter. Now,
I cannot discern its reality
without opening
the pantry postered with printed instructions--
her steady arm ensures this.

ii.
Our tongues are dense
with bread sat atop them.
Only I seem to know
how to swallow mine, how to build
an endurance. We are
tired of talking.

Her head is turned away,
looking through the window and
looking at that sun and
how it must be noon already.
I know it is nearly two. Hanging

on the wall,
there is a clock she
has not bothered to set forward.
The hands are too small
for her to read and she doesn’t
mind not knowing.

At this table, I’ve noticed pain
in my stomach. There are many churning
attempts. I can’t hide the concern from my eyes, clearly
it isn’t noon. Still time in the day to flee
to the woods as Mithridates had.

iii.
i hav givin upp on ahgreemint / knot a dae goes bye / withoutt nues winkin att us width eech i / knot evin / mye gayz cann i truste ehnymor / nore cann i beleeve mye eers / wen shee loocks oute the whindow / ande descrybes wat shee ceese / allways ten degrease ahway phrom cirkling aroun too cee eechother i too i / tho mye fays loocks justt lyk hurs / wen i sckuint att the clok / howe loung untel mye mind / soffens too thees blindead, turnning beleafs / lyk a livir sokeing inn poisen?

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