in glass jars

i.

orphans of risk are paper dolls
soaked in gasoline and
stinking of impulse.

like passion and photographs and all things ephemeral,
in exposure,
they extinguish.

ii.

wax wings make their shoulders heavy,
turn them into dry husks and
brittle leaves rattling
in hot breath.

iii.

gravity grows in the pits of their stomachs
like a cancer—
meaty,
gray,

sinister.

iv.

their lives are violent in their beauty.