BEAST

Our race was just a game.

The two of us, appendages

spread out like imposter stars.

And we stretch our spines,

holding our breath to see

who could last the longest.

With lips like blackberry and Irises,

toes popping out of their sockets…

Hips shaking, yet steady.

I stayed. You fail.

Hard.

Smack onto the choppy waves

with a foaming tiara

sprawled across the tight forehead.

I waited for you to rise again,

but you just lay there, floating at first,

then dissolve

like a cracker in wine.

The currents churned you up.

With cheeks bulging full

of sharp white shells,

nails clawing the air.

I long to help, to soothe the

cracked tongue with the

smooth milk from my breasts.

But you just keep absorbing the salt, little by little.

I wanted to give it to you.

But I was hinged to the frays of my skirt.

Some by the waving kelp,

some caught on the sun’s sticky fingers.

I didn’t want to fail, too. So, I stayed above it all.

I could tell by your thrusting and yearning,

flailing and spitting out dry heaps of sand

that the fall was too great to bear.

So, instead, I watched:

You shrink into a carcass.

Me, never reaching down to touch the crust

that comes from your ears like sperm,

never touching until I was sure you were gone.

Pale eyes trembling beneath the spirits of passing waves.

I conjure them back, those sand-dusted peaks,

churning and rolling them on the tongue like a pearl,

tapping each stray shell with a guttural cluck of the teeth.

Perched like a dove,

I sit atop these steaming waves,

feeling each slight tremor of the tide in my pussy.

I am letting my Bud cleanse me of my sins, as he lay,

like a shell, on the floor

of the emerald sea beneath me,

until the last bubble of the nose expires. I sit.

In silent agony, mouth endlessly agape.