| THE CRUMBLING OF CHRIST & THE DEFRAUDING OF LUCKY THINGS by Claudia Lamar Let me give you this, plus: a holy word & the last tequila shot, this will be your desperado prayer, you will never be missing, we never leave, we are ghosts & grief, smoke & stains, something vulgar, please. you should be an exhibitionist now, ruin your hands red, show all your teeth, & when the earth is spitting bones & the spirits are rioting, come haunt me, I will love you like flowers. |
| EXODUS
by Claudia Lamar Why I did it can't be translated, not from ancient tongues or the humming noise you make in your sleep, I was alone in the house & the sounds of spooking & other subjects were silent, because when you leave, you take all my spirit with you, & there was Jesus, hanging on our wall above our bed, & he looked how I felt & I can say that now without shame, because I have been there: calvary & crucifix & back now, I hunted for the hammer & I found it, & then I grabbed him, in the beginning I was just going to remove the nails, maybe bathe him in the bathroom sink, I imagined his porcelain skin & painted cuts bleeding into the water, but his bones were too brittle & his left arm broke in half, I held his hand in my palm, the horror of his body still nailed to the cross, I tried the other arm, gently grasping & pulling the hammer toward me, crack, fuck. fast forward past the feet, also wrecked, to the moment you returned home & found in the sink, a limbless Christ with band-aids on, & that's when I told you to never leave me again. |
| LOST CHAPTERS
by Sophia Pandeya electric tongue-sten a bulb in my mouth your mouth where the roots go and go deep as pale daikons in the sunless places a sibilance of ploughs unfurling petulant as I split earth furrows I am drowning in my sleep Sita disappeared in a frown her god-husband and sons agape at the gash before the world began again pendulous in thick of noon I was twelve at upheaval's peak and Gasherbrum appeared like a mirage like a pause before death perhaps the same moment as repentance would alight like a moth upon your eyes except now my thighs are turbulence are thrust are speaking at last the lost chapters to the tumult of your skies |
Got Keys by Tim Keane |
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