Still Life with Watermelon Seeds, Mannequin, Dead Mouse

Serrated edge flash shards of light on white walls, carving
up the watermelon slices that drip juice down our thin
brown arms, my father salts his pink slice-smiles, tiny
grains melt in. A neon sign, in my mouth, this shock of fruit-flesh.
Don’t swallow the seeds! he warns & I want to so bad & I’m bad
under the covers, eyes shut, I see twisted vines tumble, roots
embed in my stomach’s black, new green shoots slide
over my thick pink tongue . . . We spit out the slippery seeds
onto the stone patio. What quivers: the summer night air & the gash
on her left knee, pulsing. Watch how third person shifts focus, so
barely scabbed over, she’ll heal, she’ll find the poem dug up from dirt,
she’ll run all those races, she’s not split, she’s not the furry body
opened on her side, tail limp, she’s not the mouse, his intestines spilled out,
she’s not the one that glistens. The cat’s claw, the hawk’s talon.
What flourishes withers in the heat. In the photograph, seated
in a row, on the front porch of the log cabin, bodies from pixels,
the mannequin next to her, I mean next to me, is some joke
no one lets me in on. A plastic copy of another body — maybe a jab
at the mother? This plasticity & blonde wig & lush lashes propped up
next to the father on the stoop. Right there. Yes, we know what comes
next from practice: drag the coiled green hose from the side of
the house to wash away the seeds.