eight

for breakfast, peach flesh
slick and yellow —
spoken over,
blanched.
butterknife dreams
love-bites across
plump curves
—she
never said no.
eight peaches, lucky.
pits torn up,
gone out, rolling
heads and tails;
probability, ever
retrospective.
for breakfast,
thoughts
and prayers —
peaches, ate
and drained. eight
in the can,
drowning in syrup brine.
eight —
eight accounted
for, eyelids smoothed closed,
shrouded in last light.
no more appetite
for the news. call it a
bad day.
thoughts
and prayers, sticky
pulp            oozing
from holes
in hearts.
he used:
the canned
peaches left behind to expire,
the girls in the back,
the glock,
the gild.

By Amy Liu