in houses of stolen bones

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Peach Delphine

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what remains what lives within our words
ours alone 
                  progress incremental visibility 
necessity we are not coin in your currency 
salt bartered flesh expendable bitches 
voices unfiltered rolling off Gulf
                                                   tangle lightning 

wash your greens in three waters
for luck
                stem tear wash again 
progress        incremental 
clear onions bacon chunked grove peppers garlic
s&p mind your expectations 
                                            we each must for the other
         necessity reveals so much
that is marginal frayed
burlap swaddled        bind
                        ourselves to motion
                            【 I can’t have a tranny in the kitchen 
                                   but I need the help
                                       and you’re wearing the white jacket 
                                           we’ll give it a try
                                              but only thirty hours 】
never being mentored is the gift
of believing in what works 
one chef said a recipe was a street sign
not an incantation pork chops remain pork chops 
just don’t cook the fuck out of em
              dragging the mats out
no one wears makeup on the hotline
dish calling me sister saute stumbling 
on my name offering a smoke
yet there’s always a black robe
 demanding sterilization 
for an id card
                      eradication ever on their tongues 
feeding without flesh strung out
on shattered glass and cs gas

not honey stolen from bees
what flowed from crushed flesh
sunlight lifted green and sugary ash
of our foliage a sprinkling on distant roofs
squeezed by bucket fulls filling kettle
syrup sugar or rum

we feed as we wish to be fed 
we feed as we wish to be seen feeding 
we feed on our feet the need is great
it puts a roof over us
meds on the board overtime goes to part
timers people with options id insurance 
cars with functional transmissions tread
on the tires 

so many doors
wood so rotten accelerant unnecessary 
punky as used to be said 
one chef section hiked 
the A.T. loved to talk up joy of backcountry off grid
life outside cooking single meals over a small flame 
some of us on the line
                  grill flat top fryer 
had done that
in the city           life in  the open is nice 
when it’s a choice and predation 
not primary concern
                                patience and the ability to listen 
as they tell you who they are

best to accept grief savor salt
only the departed can speak for those remaining
build a fire dangle a chicken sleep in different 
places motion the salve 
                             holding to the flow
now without promise now and nothing but now
absolve yourself of time learn
small fire of splits smell of rain watchful 
where old words fill understory 
singing fluttering wings where you begin 
weather in your hair some only exist in the body
others lift root from tongue bind thicket to eye  
lift stone from palm 
                           we make our own forms 
burn our own words sleep
                           in ash of relentless day
place they said was only a dream
name dragged from coals
                             edges  smoking 
every utterance tasting of iron salt 
feathered wind
a bar of stars manifest 
of form

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Peach Delphine is a queer femme poet from Tampa in la florida. Former cook, with work published in Alocasia, Beestung magazine, Feral Poetry journal, Moist, Poetry is Currency, Stone Circle Review, and UCity Review.

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