conditioned

woke in the middle of the night
no longer drunk
but wrung out
of seven different liquors
and the regrettable silence
I never keep
pregnant, sick, with the space
words leave when they leave
and I still haven't said a thing

it's like trying to get
to that deeper layer of muscle,
scraping the fat away
through disciplined
arches of the eyebrow
and concentrated
flares of the nostril

through throwing the last
of your baggage in a bindle
over your shoulder
after carving whatever
you were supposed to carve
on the post

through stretching to pick
the highest hanging fruit

and I wonder if I have plucked it too soon
even as it swells within me -
the juices sweet on my lips
but in my stomach, a sword.