Ways to Harm a Thing by Kaveh Akbar

            
            Throw scissors at it. 
           
            Fill it with straw 
           
            and set it on fire, or set it 
           
            off for the colonies with only 
           
            some books and dinner-
           
            plates and a stuffed bear 
           
            named Friend Bear for me 
           
            to lose in New Jersey. 
           
            Did I say me? Things 
           
            have been getting
           
            less and less hypothetical 
           
            since I unhitched myself 
           
            from your bedpost. Everyone 
           
            I love is too modern 
           
            to be caught
           
            grieving. In order 
           
            to be consumed 
           
            first you need to be consumable, 
           
            but there is not a single 
           
            part of you I could fit 
           
            in my mouth. In a dream
           
            I pull back your foreskin
           
            and reveal a fat vase 
           
            stuffed with crow 
           
            feathers. This seems a faithful
           
            translation of the real thing. Another 
           
            way to harm something is to 
           
            melt its fusebox, 
           
            make it learn to live
           
            in the dark. I still want
           
            to suck the bones out 
           
            from your hands,
           
            plant them like the seeds
           
            we found in an antique 
           
            textbook, though those 
           
            never sprouted and may not 
           
            have even been seeds. 
           
            When I was a sailor I found 
           
            a sunken ziggurat, spent 
           
            weeks diving through room 
           
            after room discovering
           
            this or that sacred 
           
            shroud. One way to bury
           
            something is to bury it 
           
            forever. When I was water
           
            you poured me out
           
            over the dirt.