Poppies

"Poppies"

Heavy with food
the seed cake never passes between our lips
Dependent articles
change everything
And the sleeve,
limp on the line,
clings insistently
to my alphabet.

Poems, if entities,
should have perforated edges
but I am forced to
fold and lick
fold and lick
lick and tear
because they don't
and I can't find scissors.

Schematics are complicated
and so I cross words out
And when I say what I want
it has already been said
I say it again.
Heavy with food
one stray poppy seed
rolls between my lips:
a pea between mattresses.

And I write notes in the margin
to remember I've been there
An arrow to show precisely where
But I don't turn the pages
I lay them on their backs
one (on top of)
the other
So that form follows content.
I know the pages.
I expose their nether parts.

As the lone poppy seed
strays from my mouth
I contemplate bending
down
to recover the deviant
--Instead my eyes
turn, rolling over the purple edge
heavy with food.