Blood Moon

Published in Issue 205.3 of Noble/Gas Qtrly.

clock faces are turned to the wall
and the muses of great men stand up
 
take back their stolen voices; you are
sitting on the kitchen counter
 
in knee-high socks polishing
your liver. your teeth tell me
 
you have been gnawing at
the corkscrew again. convictions
 
disappear like clouds; the buildings blink
and kneel, they are ripening under the cross
 
stitched sky. your eyeballs are planets,
slick against the window as the
 
butchery begins. six shot glasses in a row
like tiny gravestones. your shadow has been
 
catcalling your silhouette again. hold your
tongue in both hands tightly as it pulses;
 
your mouth carries the escapism your spine
does not yet know. turn your gaze inside out—
 
venus has abandoned her companions
and settled for you. tonight
 
the garden tastes like sangria and
softly bitten flesh. the kitchen
 
cabinets have been flirting with the
refrigerator again. it was with
 
the greatest thoughtlessness
that you crossed the rubicon. you
 
drank the river dry; you stood on
your tiptoes and unzipped the horizon
 
for the thrill of it all.