They ask how I sleep and I say:
like summer preserves, wintering

behind a wall of paneled doors,
under quilted glass I lay dormant

as okra, blackberries and cornhusks,
dreams scattered like sunflower seeds

resisting packed clay before a farmer
takes to tilling, skunk striped and pursed

tight to memory. I wake to splintered
limbs, a still-born body laced in webs.

They say for now sanity is this
preservation cupboard, this flayed out

waiting for reason to surface
like the pressed lips of rain-soaked crops.

Previously published in Third Coast, 2011