By Laura Villareal

I lock-boxed every 50 cent piece
of vending machine jewelry

still inside their acorn capsules,
each one, a childhood prophecy.

I scattered holy water & salt-
ed the boiling pan until it turned ocean.

Vacuumed the bird’s nest
inside the fireplace,
still full of fox fur

nebula colored eggs
cracked like bone

china, gold filling the crevices.
I’ve always filled time this way.

But I left the front door open
& cats gathered on the lawn.

They left koi on the porch in piles
& hid mice in the flower pots.

I would have flooded the street
in candlelight had I known
you’d be here so soon.

I would have hidden
my fists in my pockets,
until compressed diamonds.

I would have traded
diamonds for starlight.

I would have made the world
give itself up to you. I would have

welcomed you to never leave

Laura Villareal earned her MFA from Rutgers University-Newark. In 2018 her chapbook The Cartography of Sleep was published by Nostrovia! Press. Her writing has appeared in AGNI, Black Warrior Review, Waxwing, and elsewhere. She has received scholarships and fellowships from National Book Critics Circle, Bucknell University’s Stadler Center for Poetry and Literary Arts, Key West Literary Seminar, and The Highlights Foundation.