on my doorstep, postulating with your many arms, so if you please, take a step back and reconsider the retrograde movements of those distant planets, bearing for me that throbbing target, your jugular. I promise, I hear your sialoquent speech, but I do not appreciate rain unless it comes from the bowels of the earth so do me a favor and return to your amniotic sac, abandoned somewhere by your mother on I-25 between Hampden and Arapahoe. I know what it means to breathe in time with what some choose to call the soul and I choose to call the gallbladder, the liver, the absolutely squelching mess of the gut, bear with me darling I am almost finished. And the wet rain that slipped down that night as you cradled that dying creature in your arms, coughing and churning, knows only words whispered into puddles, and for all the spit you spew, your tongue is a dry, cracked desert. It holds no place in my garden and so I tell you for the final time.

Anna Fischer writes about female empowerment, literature and art. She’s really into bagels. Write to her at [email protected].