A new poem by Johanna Cosgrove.
THE THING IS
i don’t know how to write about you
while my heart
bloated
is mince for the jackdaws
the slack jaw
you pried open with careful fingers
stroking my tongue as
a treasure
belonging to only you
my whole mouth bruised by a familiar tenderness
is unmoving and silent
humiliated by the turn of your back
the thing is
I’m probably dead now
and may remain so forever
having been passed over
and then
passing over
only to cry in public behind dark sunglasses
a corpse stuffed with Chinese food and the laughter of seated couples
the thing
is
that
the night time belonged to only us for a while
the bright glint of your heels striding ahead of me
was to be the thing
I reach across oceans for
my hands outstretched
as in
the mutilated limbs of a 5 am dance floor
while the dj stoically plays on
my eyes glassy mirrors of yours
my underwear in your pocket
my lips wet with greed
the thing is, that, my heart has now stopped entirely
crammed with things like
a day-to-night quilted vest
the teeth in your grin
2 perfect silver earrings
My veins are blue
holding what I couldn’t say
too risky!
for life’s precarity
for celestial intervention
for………. this
I don’t know.
but the thing is
all there seems to be in the
mess
in the diabolical miasma
in the unending stretch of the void
is
you
The Friday Poem is edited by Hera Lindsay Bird. Submissions are currently closed.