to keep her away from him
this elephantine responsibility
before you is quartz dressed
in granite stripped from volcano
               & I am scared you will try
to kill yourself again if you
don’t stay stone / o voyager
inside this thick sentence / time
spent without your child this seed
in a core / gnawed on
unpitted olives & broken
teeth being the easiest
part of the process
how your judge won’t
listen / how your judge takes
his gavel / slams against
a desk of air & its reaction
is a howling / sound
everyone else can hear

(originally published in Neologism Poetry Journal, Winter 2019)