bars curl around lit trees

  frosted with flame light.

  A dark man, shifting olive eyes

  simmering on low alcohol.

  His shadows sit across a wooden bench

  peering through bottles like

  cracked lens. The friend at our side

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  feels the lining of his pockets.

  I know you want to leave—

  my white skin is burning in this

  latino flicker. We enter the garden,

  your brown face, his brown face.

  The dark man is speaking, knitting

  his mother’s murder feet away,

  her absent body a heavy quilt

  tucked around my thighs.

  My words sharpen knives and

  load guns, hold candle wicks

  in holy hands. You look at me

  as though I’ve wrapped the table

  in aluminum foil, the glow blinding

  their green bottle lenses.