RACHEL ABRAMOWITZ

Husbandry
I wear my kidskin shoes to hell.
    I have promised to remove them before bed,
        before skinning the covers from the fleshed mattress,
before severing the breasts of the songbirds enumerating
    my sins. My shoes slip on and off like bile through teeth,
        and my feet curl back on themselves, bark from inner green veins.
I sleep the sleep of a storm drain, of burning coal—
    How the ibex clamor at the windows! How their horns scrape at the sill!
        Each cloud passing through the room wields a staff, herds me off cliff.
In the morning, my shoes are redder than the night before.