Art by Chelsea Pentland

some boys are birds when

they sleep all ruffle twitching

soft all feathered locked in

that airless room above faro

we recycled musty breath the

sheet wrung thin between us

the sun persisting through dusk

you dreamt. while heat boiled

up my old habits &i

kept obedient watch like i’d

willed the bandaid on your

sunned shoulder to untether it

slung off lazily. struck i

reached to touch the pinprick

&my fevered spirit rode the

lonely highway of your vein.

boys who are pretty inside

slosh fat with moving blood

but you pretty bird were

thick with dark mud. litter

bobbed up reeking of rot

i swam to the spot

where i’d last crossed an

X between rib ridges past

the pair of ashen young

lungs there it was sunk

too deep to dig decaying

on a low tide you’d

starved your prettiest part&buried

it stiff as a carcass.

back on the bed where

time was exempt i knelt

&dressed in the day’s wet

clothes&left following the river

to its end to pretend

like everyone who caught gelato

on their tongue i was

gladly vacationing. finally the sun

turned atlantic red my old

habit of showing the last

card i twisted a sweet

bud&rushed back&floated it

by your nose like scent

might exhume a dead heart.