By Paris Rosemont
She bunkers down for the long night ahead, when you—
like the sun swallowed by shadow slink
into your neutered nether-land whilst she
is kept company by a maddening
metronome, chipping away at the liminal
lining of her limestone skull
like an icepick.
Somewhere between attempting to trap
thoughts of you in a vac-sealed sous-vide sac submerged
in tepid water till the gristly sinews of her fixation
deliquesce—yes, somewhere between that
and the tik tok lobotomy, she drifts
into tempestuous seascapes.
The rowboat of her consciousness unmoored,
she is swept into the gaping mouth of an untamed
ocean, where sea serpents and sirens seduce
and terrify. She sinks
deep—and deeper still, until
dawn glows butterscotch mellow
on the petal-soft lids of her slumbering irises.
Clamshells languidly yawn and her feathered
hoods greet the surfacing dawn, resting
upon fresh poetica proffered: the tender body
of a turtledove, arranged in immolation
at her bedside; neck snapped, breast still
warm. A token of your affection.