HONEY MOON

 

Sticky, orange and boiled

beneath a hole in the Sweet Walla’s shack—

shack-attack of asthma glacé,

and the road outside wheezes home

to the knell of cattle bells.

 

This unstitched edge is where I left you

and everything about your name

now shy as a distant cousin

with similar eyes

but not the mouth, nose or gaze.

 

How was I to know

about this undoing,

like a teaspoon of honey

that takes months to make

but just seconds to steal

and so will no longer heal

 

this infected breath

            rough-cut sigh

                        broken tongue

                           

With hands churned raw

from milking lost maps,

I lift my face to your shining

and kiss it goodnight.

​

*First published in Baby Teeth Arts Journal, March 2022

+ featured writer of the month.