Copihue Poetry

New year. I guess I should ask you to come
save me. Do you remember when we found
the moon in the library, there were half-eaten
apples everywhere and you thought again
of curses and gods, not old or new but distant
gods whose names you’ve long forgotten, but
did you forget me and the times we spun candy
floss in circles for the ritual, everything coated
in sugar and sticky buns, the candles burned
to their nubs, you waited all night for your ex
to walk through the circle with the same blade
in hand she’d used to try and kill you during
dinner, and we all thought it was a joke, her
body bent over the table, the point of the blade
jutting into your neck, there wasn’t any blood
we thought, so was this a joke, she even had
a halo like a headband, a lighter in her pocket
you’d made her favorite buttercream frosting
purple, the color of magic, and later we’d eat
biscuits in the dim light of the porch and you
laughed about the way she choked your heart.
So are you coming this time, I’ve got heirloom
tomatoes and comic strips, pennies in buckets
and half-melted ice cream, say goodbye to us
say you’re bringing the lambs and the veins
did you know fire flowers are made of wax
sometimes I wake inside of a conch shell, when
you arrive leave the doors open for the hell squid
and the tuna with the red eyes, bring down
the hammer, I’ve got spells in bags that would
make your wildest dreams come true and just
enough strawberries to raise the dead, a bag full
of sighs from the other side, lightbulbs made
of sugar, crunchy ash, the priest’s shoes from
down the street and your ex-girlfriend’s photo,
half-shattered in the middle of the horse ring.