Bright box

I think I am naked with a headache
and won't lie down
because I've seen a woman
with two brash butterflies
hanging off her coathanger collarbones.

I take pictures of the wind with a bright box.
Last week I dropped a bag of shopping in the river
and am waiting for the water to eat the onions.
I have frames of a Jack Russel up a tree
blu tacked around my bed.

I buy branded shampoo that promises to get everything out,
but so far nothing has managed to scrud dead the birds
except fingernails and pretty words.
My boyfriend says they get there
if you invite them in.

He is often angry,
and draws potatoes blinking dirt out of their eyes.
He says that why he can't sleep
is that I run off tracks sharp as black eyebrows,
sneak out from his side and sit on the edge of the bed.

In the mornings,
he says he will forgive me
if I kiss each coffee bean mole on his back.
I tell him I am tired of being forgiven
and dislike his pockmark moon eyes.

I know that if by evening
the lamp shows up a leaf print deep in his cheek,
he has taken to lying in parks
and that I need to stop
looking through the bright box.