Come in I tell the fleas
 
opening my legs
 
it’s time to make a movie
 
on this first day of winter in my bed
 
white worms of cellulite
 
and half a glass of warm red wine
 
freshly showered
 
pink scum between the tiles
 
sunbeam floats particulates of skin
 
part of me in bed
 
and part of me on my credit card
 
lost like a meteor in the black hole lens
 
lost in the middle
 
of viral interdependence
 
can you move faster I ask the fleas
 
I don’t want to lose the light
 
I am not in exile
 
I must tell myself I have time
 
and then eradicate my apprehensions
 
the fleas swell and swallow me
 
and you too
 
in the moment you come
 
to me I ask you
 
why should we be different
 
than detectives
 
in a novel by my bed
 
stiffs discovered in a forest  

love is not a punishment
 
sometimes I forget and have a laugh
 
I open my heart like a scab
 
one day there won’t be any winter
 
through the lens the light bends
 
to a single point

Sara Wainscott is the author of Insecurity System (Persea 2020), winner of the Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize. She lives outside Chicago. www.sarawainscott.com