Winter cage
Hello belly, baby maker stretched across – to the end of my hips, bio-oil slip greasy belly so boring to believe you consume time not yet past the preoccupation with the physical but blameless in your robbery and beautiful to breathe into i will strangle you in a sweet sweat wrap wish you away with words and burn-baby-burn sit ups, then, think about feeding you hot chocolate; a detailed snowman, and watch him melt away in a January cup of milk
geography
an ash cloud lingers in my throat,
it’s there. just as I finish –
nothing rids me of it
not a big gulp
of chalky water
from my chilly’s
i go for the satsumas
an alternating sweet segment on a roster,
taking turns do their shift
in my mouth
popping under the pressure
of my tongue
I take an old strepsil from a lonely ramekin
picking away at the skin that sunk into its jelly,
uprooting it from its five-year-friends
that it shared in that dark corner,
antihistamine & ibuprofen its only company
now uselessly sitting between gum and tooth,
its sugar burning my back molar
my hungry feet lick the concrete,
out of necessity
get to the pebbles so they can
swallow the salt
as my trachea squeals for new air
yes sir
he sits on the scaffold running his rough paint brush up the frame, mummifying a collection of cat hairs and looking at me. it was early and I was yet to tell him our safe word was sparrow but I could not speak so I wrote it on a post-it and stuck it to the pane to this, he mouthed a word which looked like freedom with my face in the sun i danced for him he opened the window he climbed through. he asked me to boil the kettle, and leaned back and burnt his flesh on the steam. his red soft wound pulsed and whispered not to look but my eyes were greedy
Flight of the dragonfly 