My husband and I have always been good at creative visualization. Before we quit drugs and got married he’d place tabs of acid on his eyes to see things that weren't there. I'd lay blank sheets of photographic paper on the cornea of developing solution to conjure images. We'd always coaxed dreams from paper, and believed them.

With each kiss in the cold house 
we swallow clouds of breath – exhaled spirit, speech bubbles
 we’d rather lick away 
than fill with words. We run naked from room to room, 
keeping the walls warm.
 Our bodies blur through the halls 
of your house, its winter circulation.

I can’t remember what I’ve done with my lingerie. I look in the containers under my bed, as if my sexual self has been relegated to the wrong side of the mattress. I imagine my husband’s sexuality down there too, our shadow selves making love deep in our unconscious as we cuddle above the mattress as brother and sister.

Our marriage beganwith knots and fangs;vows inked on skin.Black venom stainedour fingers, twinnedsnakes stranglingthe marriage veinin Celtic macramé –cocksure monogamy.We became one,me and the gun,the serpent reelingitself from the needle.I had few firsts left;marriage a wild westfor the hedonist.Snakes unspooledlike figure-eights,symbols of eternity.Acrimony, alimony;Leave the moaningto adults. We childrenwill be wiserwed, inoculated –these hickeys,homeopathy.

I cut our paper dinner with a pair of scissors borrowed from the front desk of the hotel. I cooked with a spice rack box of crayons – sixteen colors. I seasoned the pumpkin pie with orange crayon, and basted the turkey's crisp skin in brown. I was remorseless with my sketchbook abattoir, playing the part of carnivore just as surely as I was play-acting the role of wife. I may as well have been a wax figure in a dollhouse eating the wax-scented food.