Piece by Piece, Preservation

Dan Roussel

I want to pin the corners of the moment carefully—thin wire pins, blushing red skulls

at the tip of the wing, then the head, the tail, the other wing stretched across the foam board

of my love. This is a dream worth hunting, a dream worthy of hanging its head on the walls

of the empty villa, always mountainside. Always isolated. I want it pressed into a book. I want it

preserved in frost without bite, preserved in fire without ash. I want to hide it in the lightless closet,

laid out in the dark, undreaming. I want to pin it under consumer-grade glass, the kind to say

look over all that I’ve had, sometimes, I think look over all that I’ve had, sometimes, I think

I only know how to love what has already died. Sometimes, I think I only learn to love when I’ve swallowed the key to the lock.