I carry you
       

like a fortune-telling fish on one flat palm
held out in front of me, an offering
made in Taiwan. Like this, look see.

You flip — that's false,
curl under, fickle,
dead, in love.

I carry you like a candle-flame in the damp night,
in the vast nave, make a shield of my other hand,
so you're a cupped moth in the cave of two hands.

But how can I open the door?
Will you open the door?
There's no one to open the door.

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Copyright © 2012 Amanda Dalton All rights reserved
from Stray
Blood Axe Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission