—beginning with a line by Keetje Kuipers
The unspeakable spoken and spoken until it becomes
bladed ball, burning star in your throat, spit
toward dark. A tattered eyeless doll’s split
blue seam, stuffed clouds blooming from
a ruptured sky. Every careful hem you knit
with love undone. Deep mouth leviathan, song
of keen and ache—now your fat slick tongue’s
a slit whale, the bloody deck a spill of holy shit.
So is every hole from whole unsewn and seen.
Let this gush be oil. Be light for a million lamps.
Be fuel. Be seed. Be skyward vine from cramped
earth, bare feet crushing your dark berries into wine.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 24, Issue 5.
Robert Fanning (he/him) is the author of five full-length collections of poetry: Cage (forthcoming), Severance, Our Sudden Museum, American Prophet and The Seed Thieves, as well as two chapbooks: Sheet Music and Old Bright Wheel. He is the Founder/Facilitator of the Wellspring Literary Series in Mt. Pleasant, MI., and the Director of PEN/INSULA POETRY, a resource for Michigan poets. For more information, visit: www.robertfanning.wordpress.com.
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