Roughly the flesh resists
then the head pops open
a silver-red rose forced to flower.
I’m glad you are dead.
Your deflated fins lay against my palm
like a hushed-up baby;
each of your speckles
once part of the black and yellow lake
flash like codes.
Killing was like a game, but it wasn’t.
The bolted handle of the knife
clubbed you dead. I used to watch his expert hands.
I learned to kill
by splitting myself in two–
one shrieking, as the blade
shrank into the skin,
the other standing back in a smirk–
Your filmy lake-water back
slaps the sink,
my father’s knife seems to know you.
–here’s the white bucket for your innards
the silver tap to flush you out.
“Intestine,” my mother says. “Digestion. Waste.”
I scratch your black intestine with my thumbnail
’til each vertebrae is articulate.
Then I open you
without disgust, adult-like:
lost are all the organs that propelled you towards me;
I relate to you perfectly. Your scoured inside
is my ideal self, gutted and clean
no mess in my all-reflecting eyes.