• burned

    i wanted to learn to love the sun, not the dappled green or the shadows it casts, or the glimmer trail across the waters, the slants through my window or even the softness behind winter clouds. I want to love it—raw—and be—burned.

  • summer sun

    you speak the language of the summer sun: brilliance that shimmers so sharp it cuts skin like paper freshly out of a printer/ the edges bleeding life like a scalpel, unstitching flesh from bone,

  • stoned

    you won’t let me read the rest of the story, you hold my limbs hostage, and my eyes glued to you; I will never know the fate of this myth, but sweet, sweetness…I couldn’t look away even if I were strapped to a tree, rocks piled around me, and stoned to death.

  • tipped talon

    that poisoned tipped talon dipped into the hole of my chest,     the fever dreams , / nausea swirling toxic , / quaking—look at me! she scrapes, look at me! monstrosity scintillating, perched, tittering, crickeling curled grin; satisfied,

  • bite

    imbibing, engorging— that bite down the quivering flesh, and those swift legs stretched out prone, wide-eyed gazelle, how sweet must annihilating be to soften into, and how rich and warm that drink must be that only to the last drop does those inflamed eyes, canines unsheathed that you slip…                                                                                                 into oblivion. 

  • wordlings

    wordlings

    borne of the mother tongue these wordlings sing her praises, from her lips they fall shrieking What joy! Stone, feather, purple and flower!           I am a word that came so,                                                         meld it all, your colors and mine and his                                                                 multiplicity is how she speaks                                                         her forked tongue, tastes,  tastes, strike                                                               what ecstasy!

  • Gone where goings sleep

    Gone where goings sleep

    Oh, sweet retreat! These receding waves and closed doors with all of its paths folded neatly underneath and leaves curling into themselves and the air slaking its moisture cold            My toes curl I am enfolded behind drooping eyes wherethe night sky slips its skin over the moon-eye, and iridescent black blankets me in soft blankness

  • where hunger

    where hunger

    i have lived through unopened windows glass panes where dreams glide mother’s arms that held no cradle and father’s unburdened shoulder and longing that scrapes and gouges these painted walls i have within me a hollow that consumes premature things, things squirming underneath the sheath, punctured too soon; where hunger eats hunger, where i eat…

  • a portobello ghoul

    a portobello ghoul

                The gills frighten me thin skin folds lined with a sliver of darkness that gnaws, draws out a fear so primal—            I scrape and shiver and wonder whose eye, whose             corpse am I about to eat—is it the horror of looking up the freshly turned ground and see its underside,…

  • Time slips

    Time slips

    like a black slimy creaturely thing, its tail end barely grasped before it slips into a still pool reflecting stars so sharp, it feels like judgment and when you dare look up they shriek in pin pricks with every roll of your eye, pressing down, bending your back till your head bows in prayer from…