to steep the bag himself.

I slide the package across the counter—

no contact necessary.

Another orders

an Americano, room for cream

with a sticky accent, tells me how

her children are doing in school.

Medium skim latte watches

suspiciously as I draw the shots.

I know the names of some,

remember most by their order.

Single espresso.

Small soy chai.

Large cappuccino.

Some must think I do not

have the parts to hear them

hiss across the counter.

Perhaps they forget how

we are made of the same thing—mistake

the espresso grind for my voice.

My hair only mops.

Come. Sit. Heel. Stay.

When I took your virginity,

I did it carelessly, like a dog

left alone in a butcher shop.

I taught you the way adults love

(quick, dry, no eye contact.)

A year later, in the back of your car,

you showed me what you had learned,

what kind of man I had trained you to be.

There was nothing playful

in the way you hit, tenderizing meat.

Scraping at skin as if you were trying

to take back what you lost inside of me.

By the time you came on my back,

my nipples were chapped

and gnawed as bones. My legs raw,

newly butchered lambs.

Mrs. Dahmer

I caught you once,

killing a squirrel in our backyard with a rock.

Your 8-year-old body shivering, illuminated.

Through tears, you told me you loved it.

I assumed you meant the squirrel.

Even after I watched the news—

clips of a 10-gallon blue vat being carried out of your building,

your refrigerator sealed with police tape,

pictures of the boys you kissed too hard.

Even after I heard what they found in your refrigerator,

(two human heads and a heart in your freezer)

I could not bring myself to call you a monster.

Your father told the reporters

when I was pregnant with you, I experienced seizure-like fits,

foaming at the mouth. My swollen body would stiffen

and my eyes would peel back like paint

as if I was trying to look at you.

The day your apartment building was gutted and paved over,

I began to obsess over your baby pictures, looking for anything

that could predict the way you learned to love seeing things inside out.

Your brother legally changed his last name

but I cannot erase the stretch marks. I still see your eyes in my mirror.

The scar where they pulled you like Persephone from my stomach.

There is no reminiscing here.

No one wants to hear how you were a wonderful child,

they only want to watch your car crash of a life on repeat.

Your adolescent obsession with road kill—

how you would bike for miles with a garbage bag

filled with whatever cadavers you found on the street.

How could I possibly not see this coming, they say.

Did I hold you too tightly when we crossed the street?