"lone driver" by Haley King
Oak Morse | Venom
after I attend a family wedding alone, we entwine, like serpents, at your spot
What about my boutonnière blooming from my lapel? Italian-cut slacks,
shed to the floor like coiled skin? Unclasp your hands. You care so vastly.
Here, we both hum hallelujah, our hemispheres sated, richer red
than the lava lamp flushing this room, seventh floor, Lindbergh loft. I’m
coiled around a man I never knew could beacon with so much
beauty: teeth, white as snow owl; cheekbones Toltec mounds; dark-rum body
unveiling faint, but fine stretch marks along sinuous arms. You
always slow burn, so I can clang like a chiliad of triangles, but tonight
quiet crawls between us, after. A thousand French kisses from
where we’ve been, you unwind from me, hiss, I’m not going to live
in anyone’s basement. Oh, if your soul would just creep towards
my underground hole, the soundest château we’d ever dwell in:
two men. One midnight you taught me how to hasp your hand, both inside
and out of this loft: your dry palm too alarming to grasp, though I hate
me. You deserve simplicity. Alone, but not on this coffee'd couch,
you light a joint, the walls pale, reticulate. Grey billows
between us; your eyes change channels, not me. Still, I’m caught
by tears wriggling into your beard. Clasp my tongue again, fasten
lids against my slithering skin. Lay down swords you’ve
yet to grab, to guard yourself from snakes like me. Softly, I’ll recoil.
What about my boutonnière blooming from my lapel? Italian-cut slacks,
shed to the floor like coiled skin? Unclasp your hands. You care so vastly.
Here, we both hum hallelujah, our hemispheres sated, richer red
than the lava lamp flushing this room, seventh floor, Lindbergh loft. I’m
coiled around a man I never knew could beacon with so much
beauty: teeth, white as snow owl; cheekbones Toltec mounds; dark-rum body
unveiling faint, but fine stretch marks along sinuous arms. You
always slow burn, so I can clang like a chiliad of triangles, but tonight
quiet crawls between us, after. A thousand French kisses from
where we’ve been, you unwind from me, hiss, I’m not going to live
in anyone’s basement. Oh, if your soul would just creep towards
my underground hole, the soundest château we’d ever dwell in:
two men. One midnight you taught me how to hasp your hand, both inside
and out of this loft: your dry palm too alarming to grasp, though I hate
me. You deserve simplicity. Alone, but not on this coffee'd couch,
you light a joint, the walls pale, reticulate. Grey billows
between us; your eyes change channels, not me. Still, I’m caught
by tears wriggling into your beard. Clasp my tongue again, fasten
lids against my slithering skin. Lay down swords you’ve
yet to grab, to guard yourself from snakes like me. Softly, I’ll recoil.
Oak Morse lives in Houston, Texas, where he teaches creative writing and theatre and leads a youth poetry troop, the Phoenix Fire-Spitters. He was the winner 2023 Julia Peterkin Literary Award for Poetry in South 85, a Finalist for the 2023 Honeybee Poetry Award and a Semi-Finalist for the 2020 Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry. A Warren Wilson MFA graduate, Oak has received Pushcart Prize nominations, fellowships from Brooklyn Poets, Twelve Literary Arts, Cave Canem’s Starshine and Clay as well as a Stars in the Classroom honor from the Houston Texans. His work appears in Black Warrior Review, Obsidian, Tupelo, Southern Indiana Review, Los Angeles Review, among others. www.oakmorse.com
Haley King, also known by their artist name GRVNGE LESTAT, is a Chicago based LGBTQ+ mixed media artist who primary uses illustrative methods to construct their body of work and combines that with digitally manipulating their own photography to achieve an effort to create their artistic world that houses themes of hauntingly provoking atmospheres.
Instagram @grvnge.lestat
Tik tok @grungelestat
Instagram @grvnge.lestat
Tik tok @grungelestat
