No Matter the Wreckage

by Sarah Kay

IN THE EVENT OF AN EMERGENCY Return my teeth to the baseball bat. Return my right leg to the car bumper. Return my right hand to the first boy who held it, Return my left hand to my father. You can find the jewelry in the chimney, buried under photographs of my grandfather. Return his smile to him. Wash my mouth out first. Thoroughly. Return it to my mother. It has always been hers. Return the poetry to my first-grade teacher. Apologize for the time I went snooping through her desk. Return the journals to the traveling salesman, I bought everything he sold. If there is any music left, you can untie it from my throat. It was dying there anyway. All the loose skin, return it to the sun. Return the pads of my feet to the tree in the front yard. Let the one who loves me make a pillow of my hair. Give my left ear to my brother, I was always waiting for him to take it. Give my right ear to the thunder, I should have given it long ago. And in case there is an empty stomach, in case an empty womb— give these to the women made of ambulances. Give it to the sirens’ scream, the flashing lights. Let them use the hunger as an engine, let them use the womb to nurse a tiny tulip to this earth. Let it be a home for a mouse to crawl inside of. Let winter not find its way here. Return this last place to the swift birds, let them finally find a place to pause, a nest in which to keep each other warm.