I cuddled you in bed & flipped the page
like lines drawn in the sand. From what I heard
the saints all lull among the flowers, their words
collect like raindrops in a guttered rage.
Their grace eclipses dismal plots, & caged
as we may be, the dizzy pot's been stirred.
I’d hoped you’d tell me of your scheme deterred--
instead you stayed under the sheets & waged

your bloody war against my fingertips,
slicing & paring, chuckling, chattering teeth
reflecting light like vicious disco balls.
I loved you with a knife, I kissed your lips
with blades, I keep pieces of you beneath
my skin, stitched in, until the keeper calls.

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This poem is part of a sonnet sequence (that just might get finished one day) with recurring themes of murder & sainthood, but in a funny way. The writing of this one in particular was immediately preceded by thinking of a friend's elegy to Anne Sexton, but I don't think that ended up in the poem. It began in Atlanta & ended in Chicago.