settlers by LAURA MARIE MARCIANO

i asked if we could go
to the museum on a
saturday and you said
you’d rather go to the park.
this went on for six months
until i fell in love with you because
everyone else stopped calling.

after faking it for hours
our natural history
became a museum
and our bones laid
on display against
an assumed habitat
with bright orange Lego
parts and gum wrappers
in the artificial dirt.

i tried to tell you that most
women preferred being
eaten out to penetration
and that the finger was just
as important as the penis.
you tried to tell me i should
date women, or that i wasn’t
spiritual.

now we don’t tell anything anymore,
our mouths glued shut, our limbs
tacked and shellacked, our heads dangling
under a sign that reads: Settlers, 2012