civilisation ruined* yellow grass  
     even weeds choke on concrete air  
december light 29 days too bright  
     for a cage in the zoo of pay gaps  
          where we performed domesticity like ballet  
     bruised and beautiful  

i ate tradition blind honey-drenched  
     we called it sweet we called it choice  
          we called it love when it was only  
     the slow swallow of erasure  
          but it was silence  
     silence dressed in wedding white  
          silence with a kitchen knife  
              
some minutes after i saw you  
     the blueprint emerged  
bodies as real estate  
     empires need foundations  

you said kitchen's your place  
     power for you was kink  
          dressed as culture as care  
prejudiced not me you said  
     just fluent in the syllabus of dismissal  
          where my silence  
     was your mother tongue  

je viens d'un milieu instruit  
     say it again it tastes better than inheritance  
education was my escape hatch  
     my father's house: no books,
                           only rules,
                                       architecture of diminishment .

         whatever was fertile you named hole  
     archaeology of want  
apertures for legacy for rage  
     for fathers and their fathers  
****-coded nescient you left-clicked then fled  
     anonymity as contraception  
        
priest i saw you in the mirror  
     when i genuflected to the altar of credibility  
          compressed myself to fit  
     the confession booth of palatable anger  

truth-teller from marrow  
     no father in my tongue  
no patriarch in syntax  
     i built this language  
          from scratch and spit  

your patri-architect face  
     brief in my heel's reflection  
divine glitch god in drag  
     costume of authority  
          theater of dominion  

hey sir mansplains-a-lot  
     aphrodite wept at the sight of you  
you fear kittens museums  
     whatever carries memory  
          whatever resists revision  
from your father's echo you learned  
     to fear permanence  
          it keeps score  

god became sermon about control  
     became warden in father's clothing  
you lick the wrapping  
     never open the gift  
mistake container for contents  
     worship the cage name it sanctuary  

you diagnose independence as flu  
     something requiring cure  
contagion of wanting fever of ambition  
     prescribe obedience like medicine  

but even yellow grass fractures cages  
     even dying things refuse your architecture  
when feral enough  
     when finished performing survival as gratitude  
to burn  
     to incinerate the honey-drenched lies  
the curated traditions the inherited silence  
     to burn until only truth remains  
          and the women who speak it