When the Moon is New
he spurns flesh
and fur
to find form
in the songs
of women
The old verses
in new throats
tear tender slits
in the sky
Wet with leak light
stars she’s a slick
inconstant constellation
but in his grip
her lips can lure
a dark side moon
from the night
See Through Boxes
Torn out tongues in see through boxes –
tiny tags taped to the glass
dream, memory, reason, song
jaws swings at the joints
pendulums
From the Asylum
This asylum was named for some do-gooder priest.
I bet he buggered boys and balanced the bones
on the tip of his nose, sucked them white
as these walls.
I’m a headstone, now,
in this graveyard.
Did you think I’d silent myself in this graveyard?
Or, confess myself clean to some sniveling priest?
You should know me better by now –
from heart beat to bones,
to the flesh you took – unbroken as these walls,
firm, bride white,
and willing. Yes, bride white,
but shillings short of your station.
Tell me, is it somewhere unmothered within these walls,
or was there extreme unction by some paid for priest?
Where are they buried, those poor bastard bones,
those tiny fingers and toes sucked white?
I do not love you now.
I’ve had years to watch my hair fawn white,
and my bones are stiff as stones
in a graveyard.
I’ve outlived the buggering priest
and counted every crack in these walls,
the cockroach crawl of days across these walls –
time is short now.
The new, apple-cheeked priest
offered me paper, crisp and white,
so that I might write to you –
a letter to your dusty bones.
Well, what have I to say to bones?
I’ve already written it all on these walls,
the years of longing and love and loathing for you –
but it’s been painted over.
Everything is blind, unremembering white, now, blank and clean as the conscience of a priest.
| Kelli Simpson is a mother and poet living in Norman, Oklahoma. She has published poems in Lamplit Underground, Rabid Oak, The Avenue, Ghost City Review, and The River. |