Deep Song

like cherubs drowning.

wet cinnamon
on the hair of a girl

who has always feared
the taste of
her own hands.

the teal open
mouth of an omega,
inked between the ribs of her

the distinction between
them a narrow-lit blur of
flesh-

tinged lace caught under
the shellacked nails of her,

the loud crushed pull of
mahogany silks, her

legs bodiless beneath
those unprovoked out-
bursts of breath

barely holding in
their throatfuls of beads,
the tiny pinched dec-
orations in cloth-

currents. but you
would have me focus–still–on
the slow-changing syntaxes

of her hair, shell
of fuchsia bequeathing moon-
tinctures. as if skin

should not unclose its
gates to let re-exit
silks.

as if diction should
suddenly in-
fuse the eye,

then cower back
into nerves like timid
floral cinders.

—Justin Wymer is a staff writer.