with slight regret, heels spill through gutter-gaps
on her way to work. She sucks on cysts and apricot skin,
and spits out old eyelashes. Amber un-tacks shopping lists
plus seven men from her fridge at the start of each month.
She buys new dresses with store cards
and smashes cups on the kitchen floor. Amber does not like:
1) postcards, 2) hugs or 3) thermal coats. She holds a cannonball
to her stomach.

Amber has decided to die within the next two years. She laughs when I cry
so the obese words sit in my voice box like a bad joke.
She unloads her moods onto ferris wheels, watches them all the way around
while I hear fire alarms and hold out my arms.

She does not wear her contacts everyday
so I care for her through binoculars and trips on my lifeboat.
We bypass the North Atlantic of our bloodstreams,
pluck out a skyfuls of stars with our front teeth
and inhale them for good health. Amber's heart is a submarine,
engineers inside do not help anymore, red cell, white cell,

prison cell. She likes to submerge her lungs in salt
and lick the oxygen from her skull, she will not come home
until she gags on a bottle of port, yanks it back from chemical lips
and says 'I'm ready'.