This is a fantasy: take me out that small backdoor
and I am unstitched long enough for you to push my skirts up
with the angry bassline in the bar against my spine.

In this you are not kind,
breaking thin glass capable of sharp sounds
sweeping it to the ground like I imagine
that table of bright blown vases
dozens of them
a hobby out of control and the artist said
“I either smash them or sell them every year.”

The sun falls in boxes, a gameboard
across the carpet, and the flag across the street
is waving like a tree, like it always has been.
Except that one day at half mast,
when I baked cookies,
and brought tea to the street,
and you saw me.
And that is added to the sunlit carpet and other
promises we keep, gently,

despite the shattered glass and fantasies.