Slice Your Wrist On A Feather and 2 other poems

it transpires with a honk
that shatters terra’s atmosphere
a mute swan sundering through gravity’s larynx
like a winged bullet sagged in cream & bone

no one expected swans to absquatulate the tellus
not like this; not with molten plumes
& avenues of menstrual milk oozing from their tails
they ascend in soundlessness; they land vocalizing morse

the luna is not a rock
it’s a womb, aching & pearlescent
caked with ancient eggs that never hatched
in serene eden; each crater: a nest

each nest: a grave; their beaks pen equations
on lunar dust trauma calculus, grief geometry
one enunciates i reminisce the first extinction
one utters your nukes morph us into fertility

& beneath the sea of tranquility, swans fuck in cascade
tongues of flame lapping the silhouettes
plunging into the slit of selenic lust
& virgin gasps of astronauts who eyed them but couldn’t scream

you think that feathers are soft?
venture slicing your wrist on a swan’s amore letter
venture gulping swan’s orgasm from a caldera
venture telling her you forsook her once

when she tattooed your childhood into her flightpath
they don’t loop back for winters anymore
they don’t bounce back for winds, or warmth or wetlands
they don’t come home for mercy, for memory, or for mourning

they resurge for revenge
revenge for what was seized
for what was shunned, for what was promised
they backtrack not to heal but to haunt

they haunt to double back & double back to haunt
their necks curve into sickles
their ojos are twin moons you’ll never lounge on
their melody? a hex, a lullaby, a contract

she laid an ovum on your pecs last midnight
it pulsed & you muse it was a reverie
but this dawn your heartbeat flutters & you witness her
on the plaster ceiling — engineering a nest from your hair & broken vows

beckon into the migration; slumber light
love heavy; the firmament is about to molt

i always
remember the
first time i mistook
the dulcet desire for daring
devotion—the steamy ways hands
tangled in half-lit rooms felt like sacred
vows…but they never were / the silvery moon
drips waxy light over alleyways slick with untold
stories / paved streets bruise beneath leather soles that
don’t slow down / but i walk them anyway—a borrowed night
a nameless thrill…a shadowy shadow that fits too well / the savvy city
hums like a silent lover beneath my fingertips…pulsing / with neon veins
electric sighs / an uneven heartbeat too loud to ignore / i am a seductive ghost
in an open-collared shirt—stitched from the breath of sweet stranger / perfumed
with whiskey…salt…the tang of almost love—intoxicating eyes subtly rimmed with
midnight’s quiet lies / cheekbones mapped by neon confessions / a mouth that tastes like a
probe no one wants answered / & then—hot hands…harmonious heat…harrowing hunger—

a stranger’s
gasp like static
against my sculpted
jawline—sharp…electrified
a voltage crawling across my skin
mouth unspooling secrets like untangling
silk…slow…deliberate…threading through the
air with the weight of a candid confession that no god is
listening to / tappers burn their names into my ribs / a name
that will liquefy before dawn / but in this passionate moment
it is scripture / it is scripture / it is scripture / (names don’t matter
here…only need…only now) / music swells like lungs before a frantic
scream / mirrors hold faint reflections i don’t recognize / someone hushes
to stay but i was never meant to / (don’t need a forever…just this…just now)
love asks for roots, for permeance / but i—i am the cool zephyr through a cracked
window / the flicker of a match before it burns out / a loud laugh swallowed by the night
& love is for those who graciously kneel at elegant altars skilfully built from broken ribcage

love is a slow
aching bruise that
never quite fades / a
wound we press into hoping
it might heal / but it only deepens
only darkens / love calmly demands
memory…repetition…the weaving of
time into porosity / but i’m not made for
the heft of always / lust is a flick of a lighter
in a gas-soaked room / the raw nerve exposed in
charged air / the voracity that doesn’t ask for names
only puffing pant…only grasping touch…only now / lust
leaves no footprints / only elusive echoes in the dense bones
only shadows behind the gloomy eyes / only taste of something
almost remembered & then the light turns red / a name i forgot carves
itself into my costals / a voice i swore i’d never hear again purrs in my skull
the sultry heat lingers in a way it shouldn’t & suddenly…suddenly—this doesn’t
feel like running anymore / it feels like something just slipped through my fingers
a half-whispered alias…a fleeting graze…a question i almost asked / the wind whirrs
with something unfinished & when i close my eyes / i relish the ghost of a kiss that might
have meant something / if only i ardently had let it / i truly wonder what it would mean to say

father shatters the mirror to show the lad again father
father rememorates the glass no man can name father

father shrouds the belt wreathed beneath the bad father
father respires the night of iron & prayer unsaid father

father raises the wall & feels his hands shake father
father hammers quietude where no words break father

father coaches hellish hunger as its own benison father
father genuflects to gashes that brand itself lesson father

father trains the seed in the art of withholding father
father engraves tears inside their own holding father

father deserts the chair yet summons shape father
father fleshes out shadow to find his escape father

father beholds the boy run barefoot through his eyes father
father bleeds the bloody being who still strives to rise father

father obliterates haven that once was warm father
father echoes the echo that thrives to form father

father baptizes himself anchor & blade father
father fires up the end where he stayed father

father purrs the grave like incarcerated toy father
father remains father who remains the boy father

father hannan susurrates the silence into storm father
father turns to stripling who ventures to transform father