Mick Powell’s poem, “u be a fang // i be a body,” will be published in Apogee Journal Issue 09.
i am thinking of fire forgiveness my mother (and fire)
Ma, didn’t you want / to know how / i mantra’d
my bullied mouth into water sound? how
(i got)
atlantic / atlantis / disappeared the raw red
and became a city of calendar? how i
(haunted)
the ghosts & the gods / turned my body / black
tourmaline? thumbed into the aloe plant
(and)
ate its nectar / to soften between my legs / to bury myself
in a casket of peach skin? didn’t you
(want)
to know how / i learned to braid hair / in the dark
or how i crawled open my jaw? how i imagined sage
(burning)
between my teeth / imagined / all the earth’s
smoke ashing me into small? my soft spot
(or)
how i sabotaged / it / when it became
turquoised and rib-boned? brimmed with violent
(apology)
Ma, didn’t you want / to know how / i ripped
all of the baby teeth from myself that night?
(i made him)
a raw red place / to put himself / instead of
down there, where all it did was
(flame)