When My Lover Asks What I Would Do If He Were Transformed into a Guinea Pig and I Immediately Respond, “I Would Sell You.”

Forgive me, I should have asked questions,
               but I am not a ditherer. You stressed the cost-
benefit, pleaded the price of cucumber and alfalfa,
               pitted the rustle of wood chips over the flush
of cash, insisted you would fetch no more than thirty bucks 
               secondhand with no equipment included,
but I knew I could never abide the scrape
               of your teeth coaxing tears from metal teat—

Oh ancient rodent! Oh Peruvian feast! Oh navy 
               navel of night when your nails graze
my naked ankles! If only I’d have told you
               about the sleepover with Sarah, her bedroom 
squeaking full with cages, with dung, with saturated cedar,
               her morning routine of clean and feed,
how she cupped ginger fluff like a magnolia blossom, 
               like the sticky cheeks of a toddler, how my toes

curled into my thighs all night, fetal against the threat 
               of rodent jailbreak, tensed for a nibble
dark as the cathedral at Cusco where Jesus blesses 
               the brittle ribs of a roasted sow, her paws
raised and whiskers burnt, the frizzled shadow 
               of her scream cooked onto her snout
before the cluster of disciples, eyes fixed on their Lord
               with faith as moist and bald as rice, like my own belief

in the market for fur companions, blushing flustered 
               in our bed, why didn’t I inquire the nature
of your metamorphosis, this bully therianthropic
               shift in our marriage—are you you
in pig form, arithmetic still whirring beneath
               your tufted ears? Do you chirp English syllables, 
or is language lost behind the violet dew
               of your eyes? My left shoulder wedged beneath

your right arm, your weight thick and human
               as regret, yes, forgive me, for I could not imagine us 
two beasts separated by species, did not think
               to ask what makes you so certain you are not 
a guinea pig now, blackly furred from shins
               to shoulders, downright luxuriant in the scalp, 
your insistent chut and wheek nightly in our sheets,
               the hum and snuff of your snore, the skill you show

diagnosing a cold with a glance down my throat?
               And am I not a scowling biologist, feeding you up 
on salt and sugar, cold as a measuring tape
               across the belly, shrill as a hawk testing 
your fight-or-flight response at the supper table,
               scratching down your every twitch in ink?
What I meant to say is I’m not a nurturer any more
               than a ditherer, but that I know if I rise to a tingle

in my molars as the linens thrash an ocean around
               my body and the whiskers sprout like mushrooms 
in the morning dim, you will set me under the lemon tree,
               lay white blossoms on my back and give the dog 
for my steed as, nose to nose, you chuff my language
               back to me—until the grunts come clear, 
until we purr a single squat lyric and our house falls
               into hay, until the thunder shocks us silent.

Read more from Issue 19.1.