What Are These Things?
Do you feel the letters
in your mouth like bones
of a fish, the spine of sense
caught on the hook of your mind
that prods and pokes: a palpable
delicacy, hard-palatable, yet
slippery through the teeth?
Loquacious L, lascivious and limning
luscious viscera of what I mean.
Tell you what: Meet me at the Lehigh River
bank and we’ll collect Anthracite coal
lumps, ancient knuckles that punch
our metatarsals, polished shiny, washed ashore
like they were dumped out of a landfill.
We’ll bike the dappled D&L trail
from the Mansion House Bridge to 1975
and back through the Mirror in the Sky
that the river covets beneath a rust-red rapture
of steel. When the train bell clangs, I will wrap
my tongue around your silence
and suck it down my throat
to digest. The insects stir; their choirs
grow louder. I will align my thin fingers
with the ribs flanking your kidneys,
hold you close, and listen to the vapors
of your breath steam-clean the tiny hair cells
in my ear. The Anthracite rocks
will take cold residence on the mantel
of my decorative fireplace where dried candlewax
opens its neglected palms to cradle them.
Their names are lost. They masquerade
as fool’s gold when the sun
lowers its gaze.
Stacy Rollins
Stacy Rollins is a writer, visual artist, singer, Tarot reader, and health and fitness enthusiast who currently lives in the greater Philadelphia area. She earned her M.A. in Creative Writing from FSU and has authored two books, Truer Faults and Learning to Read. Her poems have appeared in Atticus Review, Bicoastal Review, Everyday Genius, Diversion Press, Black Heart Magazine, Crack the Spine, Poetry Quarterly, New York Dreaming, Garbanzo, Nailed Magazine, Spine, Shantih, The Oleander Review, Rat’s Ass Review, Helen, Nude Bruce Review, and Armarolla.
