Joseph Henry Lengson

Nightly, Thomas’s lovers unscrewed his invention, preferring the kindness of candles.

Once he thought he was so clever, capturing the sun in a mason jar, dreamed of it conveniently lighting a porch scene while a girl rummaged for her door key, or illuminating her face as her sweetheart found her lips.

Instead it was the moths most drawn to his creation and Thomas found himself responsible for the deaths of a million naked butterflies.

In an effort to outrun his own name, he built a raft, weaved his escape 
beneath a pale ribbon of sky.

He drifted in the Amazon for awhile, admiring the work of a greater inventor: His electric eels: votives of the sea, the dimmer switch of the sun.

But when night fell, Mr. Edison could not stop concocting:

Perhaps a cloak of sewn glowworms he mused, should no one be able to find me?

Or a bouillon cube of crushed fireflies for a soup one can sip in the dark?

What if I could squeeze that bright flash of storm into twin pendants for the ears of my darling, what then? Would that not be the potion for love?

double. Her thighs

the birthday card that sings when opened. Her nipples flat

peonies unwilting

in my mouth. The soft crown of her belly. How many kneecaps

would I break or grind

to salt crawling back for just a lick. An autograph. If I had only paid

more attention, taken

notes: the chapped pasture of her breast, the sturdy throat

and its lighthouse

pulse. If I had only wrapped her in plaster, cast a spell of her body.

Studied to become

a surveyor–made it my job to measure forever the miles between her lips

Peeled like a banana or the bent leaves of tulips. This isn’t a violent poem

but it is about a new beginning and aren’t all births bloody? A new

voice box sprouting in your throat like a meaty flower.

Is that how you talk so clean to me now? Swear you have grown

new hands. Can carry your truth outside your body. But you

look exactly the same. A knife and a letter opener. A black bear