2 Poems by Janann Dawkins
Confession #6
Fly with me, fly by me,
I don't care. Take the tongue
from my mouth, fill me
with aerosol lucidity. My tongue
doesn't matter. A hummingbird
will fill my throat and hover
where my voice once stood, heard
but not heard, drawn yet uncovered.
*
The sun frets. I tear
at my shirt, aroused
by the raggedness there.
I am a stranger to water.
My tongue is boundless, my mouth
is false shelter. I lick the cloud,
the coming storm. I pick
at my flagging skin. What
a human shirt! What monstrosity!
I swallow an oasis of dirt.
I strip to my bones. The hummingbirds
nest in my organs. They seek the drought.
*
I lap at my lips. There is water there,
below my nose, such a strange
reservoir, the channel of curved skin,
the tongue settling there like a raft.
There is a drink of self, a bleed
of sweat, an anguished spot of rain
drenching the cheeks. The sun isn't real.
The sky retreats, and the hummingbird
with it, revealing a mouth of sand.
Day
Darkened nymphs on the feathered lawn,
led like men by a certain scent,
scrawl their beaks along the ground.
The beads of bugs among the weeds
soon glide, a dozen juice-filled jewels
down the gullets of these thieves.
Like men, they stalk on stark-high
legs. Stilted menace, yellow knives
skewer their departing prey.
***
Worm-livered, my mother pecks
at my father. Her eyes have gone
silvery green from liquor, her tongue
a dread scab, a dried worm in itself.
What questions she brings. She scratches
thoughts through her throat: Screw you. A crow hides in her mouth.
***
The morning burns as always. Worms
disappear into the earth, and crows pick
at the ground where they slither, swallowing
nothing but dirt.
Janann Dawkins's work has been featured recently or is upcoming in Two Review, decomP, Poesia, among others. Her chapbook Micropleasure was published by Leadfoot Press in 2008. She resides in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she assists in editing the eclectic literary journal Third Wednesday.
Fly with me, fly by me,
I don't care. Take the tongue
from my mouth, fill me
with aerosol lucidity. My tongue
doesn't matter. A hummingbird
will fill my throat and hover
where my voice once stood, heard
but not heard, drawn yet uncovered.
*
The sun frets. I tear
at my shirt, aroused
by the raggedness there.
I am a stranger to water.
My tongue is boundless, my mouth
is false shelter. I lick the cloud,
the coming storm. I pick
at my flagging skin. What
a human shirt! What monstrosity!
I swallow an oasis of dirt.
I strip to my bones. The hummingbirds
nest in my organs. They seek the drought.
*
I lap at my lips. There is water there,
below my nose, such a strange
reservoir, the channel of curved skin,
the tongue settling there like a raft.
There is a drink of self, a bleed
of sweat, an anguished spot of rain
drenching the cheeks. The sun isn't real.
The sky retreats, and the hummingbird
with it, revealing a mouth of sand.
Day
Darkened nymphs on the feathered lawn,
led like men by a certain scent,
scrawl their beaks along the ground.
The beads of bugs among the weeds
soon glide, a dozen juice-filled jewels
down the gullets of these thieves.
Like men, they stalk on stark-high
legs. Stilted menace, yellow knives
skewer their departing prey.
***
Worm-livered, my mother pecks
at my father. Her eyes have gone
silvery green from liquor, her tongue
a dread scab, a dried worm in itself.
What questions she brings. She scratches
thoughts through her throat: Screw you. A crow hides in her mouth.
***
The morning burns as always. Worms
disappear into the earth, and crows pick
at the ground where they slither, swallowing
nothing but dirt.
Janann Dawkins's work has been featured recently or is upcoming in Two Review, decomP, Poesia, among others. Her chapbook Micropleasure was published by Leadfoot Press in 2008. She resides in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she assists in editing the eclectic literary journal Third Wednesday.
