time slipped from our grasp
and like a moony girl we clung
harder to our holy texts
filtering out life’s variegated
strings, jaws of spit
tautening in the crevices
a mouth wishing only for a better
pair of breasts.
candles melted at windowsills
the heart rolled
in the earth’s slip —
judgement, self-flagellation,
pity — these things returned
to the core of a person
where once a body
ambulated without
the condition of a gaze
though we accustomed
with eerie quickness
to each other’s evaluation
you cannot decide
where
lightning will strike; and the trust
between us
dissolved; animals died
horrifically
unremarked upon; hearts
were felled by disrepute
and lies; soles socked
in lead; everyone of us intubated
as a psychotic
desire to reinvent one’s self continued
to abound; it was like the time
I had to get drunk
to tell you how I felt, genuflecting
before the knot of ice
blood beading my cuticles, and
what I wanted to say was
I’d like to imagine this world
in another way
— MARGARET SAIGH
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