the secret meaning behind saints and sachets

 Too much illumination in my room, the nightlight, the starlet,
this terrible flashing between my legs. All the terrible
lies in the loving, the lick of the upside down cake batter
sweet and crazed on my tongue.
I’m drunk on my mother’s urn
and estate sales, something bending crazily
in the moonlight that reminds me of you throwing letters
out the window. I see my childhood fractured in the glassware,
the fastening and unfastening of too-thin straps.
Your fingers pulling my neck up by the pearls.
I go sifting through the clothes,
the costume jewelry as if there were neighbors
who’d forgotten, forgiven. The leather couches
that smell like dog, like girls with hands up
their skirts. They only come for up for air for the marcasite,
for the dressers because it’s all about secrets, that terrible folding
and unfolding of nightgowns. I know it feels right
when it makes me think of a woman drowning.
The grandfather clock making everyone flee its knowing.
Everything collectible. The teeth marks on my back,
those harsh constellations, collectible.