Status Updates From Dearly: Poems

I know you are not a bird,
Though I know you've flown
So far, so far away.
I need you to be somewhere...

Here is the woman working a knife
among onions and innards,
her sleeves turned back, besmeared.
She's looking at us aslant:
she knows what bodies eat.

This is her job or prayer,
her grace, her offering:
these guts and dying petals,
the candle guttering down.