What do you listen to while you work?

not music—

but the breath of eucalyptus cracking

in a brown bottle

//

the teeth of my dead husband clattering in a tin

as I move the altar again / again

trying to remember where the grief sounded best

//

the clicking of a jaw out of joint

memory stammering in the kitchen drain

//

I listen to rot     in lowercase

to saints who never speak but sigh

to the shiver in my wrists when the wind

pulls the scent of lichen from my past

//

I listen to him

(but only when I’m not supposed to)

when the room is scrubbed clean of wanting

and the jasmine oil begins to sting

//

I listen to the paper bleed

to syntax begging to be broken

I listen

to everything that would not make it into a song