Melinda Wilson

   
 

 

LIGHT TERMINATION

Not an RU-486  Not a D&C or D&X  Despite her horror at you
little watermelon  The towering buildings that during sleep marched
through her languid veins  You are not yellowed  Not under cold stress
as you were  You dream now of ghosts that are not you  How you would trust
their tiny hearts in your own chest  Wanting to be whole while knowing
portions of your own flesh took with them something more than blood
More than stem cells rich with you  Want to be lathered in sterile clay
Dried out and happy  One  One  Want  Wanting to be one  As in one



APPLE BELLY

Born in a sour waste lot,
you were born chicken.

She feared your sexless face,
you were the sun's white shadow.

You blinded her, took her for your own.
You were a violent mirror.

She was your scaffolding.
You grew rampant

and defiled her.
She was alone and benighted by you.

You were born chicken
and spent her as if she had no past—

 

POEM

You pass it back, dead thing—
sticky salamander of potential.
You do not bathe it,
do not take photographs.
It is past now
so why remain?

But you prefer the ice of sleep.
A ghost ship reminds you
that the lips of the deer are the softest
kisses and of the various quicksands
death is perhaps the most yawning.

Lungs will eventually seize—
leaky buckets are incapable of guilt.
Forgiveness is something
when you have someone to address.
So get up, dress and walk out.

 

 

Melinda Wilson is Managing Editor for www.coldfrontmag.com. Her poems have appeared in or are forthcoming from Arsenic Lobster, Diner Magazine, The Lumberyard, and elsewhere. She lives and teaches in NYC.

 

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