perhaps you guessed the truth:
if i was a plate i’d be a paper plate
covered in dead insects
and spiders – songless crickets,
and wings that no longer remembered
flight. I’d run away from lips
and men, from the dark recesses
where cool comfort holds my mother

I’d be neatly organized as a palate 
for the story of legs that no longer creep
and the poetry of bodes that do not crawl.

I’d take all the homes of all the paper wasps
and wet them down and smear them flat
and dry them out and become 
a tissue canvas for cheap red and green
ink flowers. This is the truth

If i were a plate, I’d be a paper plate
wishing all the legs upon me
would walk and rush and drive down
to the heart of every matter
ready carry lips and teeth 
and scarier parts of the living creatures
I am so afraid of to sting and bite
and teach the painful lessons
kept close to dirt and stone 
or in the back of cabinets
forgotten.