The stag’s heart spoke (as it passed
through my throat) of desire.

I’ve held the strangest of strangers.
To swallow, the quickest way to close

that distance. I’m still so hungry for
the tribe of shadows that rubs

its fur against my night-time
and there are no bars, but bars

of trees. Yes, the forest speaks
with many voices.

All of them say Lie down,
die here. Yes, stomachs split

and organs fall from
ordained order. A liver jewels

up at me through the murk
of dream. All beings fall

through each other, through topsoil,
into deep cradles of rain.

I’m afraid I’ll never know another
body, only the bloom

of impact. And in the dark
we’re all moon-blind, heat-

seeking. I’ve seen the cavity-
colored tracks in antlers,

ticks balloon with pooled blood,
and fleas rise like ghosts from drying

hides. How deep I’ve looked
with my gleaming knives.

Their eyes are open,
but their gaze is closed.

Like them, I’ve learned to veil
my face in breath, white as vapor-

bone. Behind it, my teeth
press my tongue until I can taste

my own blood, the tang of steel
bars in the rain.

 

Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 17, Issue 4.

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Mini-Cleopatras of the backyard creek,

what faith shakes us from the bone

of make-believe? Sometimes lions, we

stretch sun-lengthened limbs, laugh fierce

bells of lilac. Sometimes meat, we dream

the soft darkness of mane pressing us

downward as we’re devoured, each invisible

portion of flesh. Grasshoppers rise from the bank

in silent applause. July parades her turgid belly

straight down Main Street, splintering shutters

with school-girl swagger. Dry sheets rust

to clotheslines. We light our throats with butter

cups, witch our hair in silt the sheen of night.

We, of spoon-bending mind, of voodoo

nouns, shift board into plume, lift as one nude

into bloom along the roadside. Water whispers

from our skin. Old men in pick-ups avert their eyes.

Others turn and turn. Before we melt back into the forest

of our clothes, we hula hoop our hips in bee-haze

heat. Each grin a lavish display of blackberry ink

or sheen of blood between our teeth.

 

Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 17, Issue 3.

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