by Cassandra Troyan
why can’t we shake
these skin leashes
dragging
they cling behind.
Keep traipsing around
until they rip free or tangle indefinitely.
Release only by proverbial crack
and a beak sliver shrieks through.
Look how we are born crucified resurrected all the same. This is our flesh now we made it so
cum to blood sweat ash.
WE INITIATE THE DEATHLIGHT
When draft of a shadow arrives, make no motion as it snuffs itself out.
Dissipates to vanish into ourselves
relies on eventually there must be drought:
pools will drink themselves lapping
up the dredges slurps of silt.
Until our gums crack
peel to expose hardboiled jaws
twigbone fingers compose woven nests
cradling the last dusty sweetness
of each other’s bodies.
And now, there is nothing more.
I don’t know the means for and/or which a day makes itself anymore.
Lost track on all the shuffled cluttered paths
my lady’s train seeps so red.
Crinkled feet leaving tracks
though no one is swift enough to follow
to duplicate
to make counterfeit prints.
I’ve finished throwing bones to the jackals of fate
any traveled sinews meshed to the path
becomes the path.
Irreversible weight of this self-loaded task.
Hooves disappear tatter in sand
gulping up blood.
Will she ever feel swollen
under this hammer of heat?
Bloat in my belly
though her ribs still apparent.
Barometer of sunken flesh
wraps organ cage.
There will always linger a quiver as we repeat the affair again, and again. Rise up on our throne of blood call it CORPSE MOUNTAIN built from what intangibles uncertain.
Survival defeats boredom as the curious eye seeks lifeblood the desire to see ourselves in a distant floating apparition.
Such a stolid proposition
of where can those hunting
no longer be prey.
Perhaps our wrath
twists its back
sinks talons into our flank.
Maybe that is what pools
the fluid behind our lips
sweet self-infliction.
We mix it
overflow pours down our chests
collects in canyons of flesh.
Snatched in the shimmering
caught myself seeing me
peered through to underwater umbrage
rumbles distant pleasure
in a mossy swamp depth.
Then suddenly, I collapse into
focused longing.
Her water flesh clings as
rolling sheets of glass
encases trunk of thigh
then a wrapping fabric pulls
tight when I first lifted
her onto my lap
pulled up her hair. Lips to a
flickering neck, contracting
stream of bones pass
underneath.
A slithering behemoth of want
was born that night.
Initial desire floods back
multiplied in flashing frames
retroactive passion pours mammoth waves
crests peak above our heads.
Brine brimming in cavities
lathered gag of sea
paints its salt
to greedy lips
tide replacing breath.
So close to the end
yet the body calls upon ancient tastes
instinct of appetite heightened
with the tongue of death swabbing
our throats
clears the way to opportunity,
caught between a pulse or murmur.
LOOK HOW ALIVE WE ARE WHEN ALMOST DEAD
Tinge of a filthy taste whets mouths insatiable:
“I must have it, I accept through all terms”
she bleats, all of her cranked open
to sea, sky, with conjoined hips.
Spread onto the trails of now and those strewn with bodies torn by fever. We’ve cut an ugly wicked path, savoring our promise to make still more until stuffed up to gullets, choking victories of demise.
The liquids of life mingling,+/-
conjoin opposing ends
as all of us spurting forth
the final entrails sputter
dry to roll over in such
luscious sludge
deflated essence squeezed
to leave us as sacks
of skin side by side.
so empty and so full.