Treasure

I would put you on display like a butterfly
with a straight pin through its abdomen,
its wings dipped in wax and spread
wide—exposed. I would put you in a glass box,
paint the insides with red, your face blue as
mesa sky drop you off in ten thousand museums
and sell your copies for wells in Africa. I’d dip
you in bronze and stand you behind the pulpit,
convince everyone you were Baal or God or
the devil one, they’d call you Jesus to the
chips in the paint and all the creases in your joints.
I’d carve you from marble and cut my name
across your chest, trap you in a jar, screw on
the lid and put you away to permeate your taste.
I’d pull you out in the middle of the night, pour
you around and get the world drunk, admiring
your figure on the wall, spread over the floor,
the tapestry stitches in your back. I’d fold you
in the towels to keep them fresh, bake you
in the blackberry cobbler and stitch myself
through your veins, chisel your hands
away from David’s sling and catch
you in the light, hang you like a crystal
over the bay windows, swallow you like a pill
to cure the cancer spots under my skin, follow
you away off ocean cliffs, drink, drown, sink
to the bottom and bury you with me in the sand.

©Jordyn Rhorer 2010