KYLIE MCQUARRIE

Disappear your family from the house.

Rewind long basement nights,

glaring screens, stuttering streams,

the brown cottage's air thick with bees,

whirlpool thoughts of slim knives unsluicing

veins. Undo the last bird, irregular verbs,

feminine nouns scrawled on windows, on skin, on

the girl's lips, the boy's

fingertips, sweet-bitter as a petal

on the tongue. Stop.

Find the old room, glossed yellow by afternoon sun.

The violin sheathed in velvet—grip its neck.

Let dust leap from the bridge, spill

the folders from the patchwork bag,

the one etched with silver.

The rest unspools.