A core chord, twang, 

a ripple through Her adolescent 

body. An ache, a sapling severed 

and oozing from the angular gash. 

Look up, mouth gaping like the baby bird and whose 

words waterfall from lips, chapped, flaking like dried paint, 

question the foreign expressions. 

Tell the truth–the penetration: like mother of pearl through overblended, lukewarm broth.

Enter your ice box, memory cotton on the gooseflesh of skin. 

itching. digging deeper into. clawing upward, still– 

sand and cotton mix. turns wet once they hit the reservoir of 

arteries. 

Foreign whatsits 

Halo around Her crown, pierce, 

like through nipples or lobes, 

genetically modified branches 

leak secrets. 

Spill over, keep me conscious, ask me… ask mee e e… 

“the sky’s in my room” 

Mother 

do you see the handsome man(?) bulge of biceps keep eyes fluttering. Keeping afloat in a sea of

insentience. 

I believe that hands move arms like out the iridescent window of your car,

speeding down I-90 paper airplane hand–out the window– 

lulled to sleep–unnaturally.

Excavate my body on your sterile construction site

where my flaws make your money. 

An oyster is nothing without Her pearls.

Venus is no Athena. 

Put Her back in Her shell. 

Say open wide–say, smile.