vanishing point

                   a woman i have grown up loving grills
          us peaches on the front porch when i visit

                        there are darts & ring toss        i always lose        she calls me

an old name i dislike & i let her
                        i have learned

                                       to desire        what i could never feel
                   deserving enough of         to hold         which is to say   i will desire

                                       anything        which is to say   i distance
                          myself from being        held   it is safer this way

at the kitchen table i peel       the fruit with my hands
                     take the pit’s rough      weight in my palm
prepare them so the heat

                                            may sweeten them       repeat the act            impatient

              i split        its soft self in half         it feels violent
                                                                                     there is a ghost inside me

                        made of many names        & of a gender i do not know
                                what to call        in this language       i try
                        to excavate        meaning from        if over & over i could

                                                split the ghost apart       would i       how

                        to be made of fracture
                                    without the heat of blood inside me feeling

                                                                         far away        the remaining skin

             of the peach is not
                         useless        i reach for it        wanting to vanish a wound
       i leverage my own       hunger & salt         take it in

                                            my singular mouth like a beloved
                                                                                                  i cannot help

                                                                    but reach & reach toward