Candy Dish Sonnet

Already the heart-shaped dish on my end table
lies combed bare: long strips dug out
============== a cleaning out
============== a scratch in grain, table

scraps lain out so comely, meaning to love
or hold cacao or almonds—those striae
of protein. A deep cut, I tell the butcher,
I’ll take the heart as soon as you can give it:

a gift to the first child I come across. Crows
in trees lean in with every crumple the butcher
paper makes in my hand—soon the branches
will be as naked as bone china, and we, like

the skeletal sky, reach out for any sweet filling,
each drip-drop chocolate kiss staining our fingers.

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