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Away into the fog and cold where the rain cuts slits on my grey skin paled from the moon’s ever longing gaze. Where are we going?

(Tried out One Word)

Sometimes songs just soar seamlessly through thoughts
Slipping sounds quietly
Sometimes songs don’t know when to stop
Sometimes songs stop. 

Blooming stargazers on her night stand
burn deep
like the sun setting after a day of rain
and the clouds had gone away.
Opened wide for the birds and the bees
they wait, untouched.
Bleed red on the surface
running down cracks of my skin
dripping on the carpet,
once more. 

Where have you hidden them?
I’ve looked high and low.
Shown flashlights in the deep darkness.
But I’ve left the locked box alone…
I’d like to know what’s in there
it rattles when I shake it.
Perhaps I could just ask you for the key. 

Being a woman
means you get to bleed and hurt every month.
Also you have cleavage. 

Georgia went south
and kept going.
Her socks were thoroughly wet
and her jacket could no longer keep out the cold.
She must continue south.
Ever more south and south. 

she couldn’t help herself, they whispered, she had the poison in her touch.

enough so that the grass wilted under her feet, enough so that the slight whisper of her breath on an errant breeze laid waste to their nearest neighbor’s corn crops. 

the farmer had heard the sudden silence of the cicadas, the crickets’ endless sawing stilled immediately. rushing out into the field, he grasped handfuls of ruined silt, before he started walking.

he woke the family on the dawn, with a fistful of shredded leaves in his hand, blackened corn silk, seeds crumbling down to dirt. “you better get a handle on this,” he hissed, eyes shot through with red veins. “get a handle on this or someone else will.” 

her mother’s fingers tightened on her shoulders, as her father’s hand tightened on his plow handle. in the doorway, the girl stood quiet, awkward as a new foal, the air around her seething gently. the farmer blinked his tired eyes against the unspent energy that haloed her body, rimming her form like the heat sizzling off of a desert highway.

he only got that glance, before her mother and father closed ranks in the doorway, the mother’s sharp collarbones lining up with the father’s sloped, work-weighted shoulders. the family nodded their assent. they’d till the earth twice past it’s potential, just to cover the loss of that field, to buy their neighbor’s silence for another season. 

“you just… you just see to your girl all right?” the farmer muttered, squinting at the doorway, into the square of light where somewhere she stood. 

as he turned to leave, the sound of laughter broke over her right shoulder, shrill and childish, almost a scream. the sound seemed to flow over his right shoulder and strike him like a whip. like a dazed animal, without his mind agreeing to it, his body broke into a dead run, legs strumming against the powdery dirt until his feet met the tired boards of his own front porch. he managed to make it three steps into the front door before his body slumped to the floor, a blackened slice striped across his cheek. 

I will rest
when there’re breasts
in my face.
in the bosom
that is my place.

Perhaps petri dishes were not made for cultivating colonies…
growing enzymes and other things with sticky sides.
They also make decent coasters. 

Radishes braised in butter.
Soaked.        Swimming. 
DROWNING.
Doused.
Cook until tender.
Serve with steak.
or eat like popcorn! 

by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

Turnips tumbling toward the towering tankards.
Roast them turnips, perhaps with butter,
or steam them until they are limp and moist. 

Silly words sing sweetly
Swirling wildly, simply sung. 

Windy sails swoop silently
Windows see slick water seas.

Salty sand wiggles slowly
Sinking soundly, white seams sewn.