Dark Sky Magazine | Issue #8.7

by Jspru1.You turn to pick a poison mushroomin the dew-slick field where we lie.Not the deadly Amanita, you say, but “A damp,dark experience you will not soon forget.”In the small of your back you wear a tattooI am meant to see: the ship, the Black Freighter.You are smoking a cigar.When you reach to offer me a plumI break into a sweat, but the sweetness of your fruitis unexpected, like a drop of mint from the corner of your eye.Soon it dries and stings the tongue; it burns the wormbeneath the weeds. You stretch to pluck another,and your nipple brushes my lips through the silk of your blouse.”I shouldn’t be here,” I say. But you breathe into my mouthand I cannot speak—of fruit or bitterness or pain—so I give in and lift the hem of your skirt.2.Your tattooed leg is all chains and thorns,but your thigh as smooth as pudding against my cheek.My arms grow dim, my eyesdisappear and, without consent, my blood lets go.Down the long hall of sleep in the queergunnish light of the lowlands you comeconjuring, shuffling up a dream:”You’ll know me when we meet again,”you whisper in a stream of smoke,”by the sapphire in my nose and taste of bone upon my tongue.”I see you naked, rubbing pollenbetween your legs, and hear you sigh as your body turnsa shadowy blush, and fades away like the sperm-pierced night.3.When we awake we are in a house, alone exceptfor furry mounds skritting from wall to wall.I want to kiss you, but you point to your teeth and murmur “placenta,”then I marvel at the infrared around your mouth.”It’s time to go,” you say to someone hatchingfrom the cocoon of your speech—an impermanent sound, soft as powder.We embrace and part and you hand me a lizard.”Write with its tail.”4.I remember that time, the book made of dirt, your indigo eyesand your corpse-like smile; I look into words to seeif you’re there and see only my voice and the dark in my hands.