By Kendall Southworth
On some mornings I awaken to
find the world in a smooth simmer,
a patient seething animated by my observation alone.
Outside, the light of a gauzy sun nudges the space between my brows,
a muslin cloth over the glaring organism so that
what reaches me is a starchy whiteness which
I could floss out of the air like spun sugar if I were nimble enough.
My belly is pressed through the opening slits of a pool chair,
a dense pulp resisting a mesh strainer.
Peering through the narrow cave between my forearm and the woven polyester,
assisted by the hypnagogic metabolism of late spring,
I have a vision.
An enormous, disembodied vulva
with a sentience that permitted a simple, ancient drive.
The tremendousness of its presence roused a growing pressure within my chest,
a rosened flesh ample and mnemonic.
Within its mass, a recumbent figure is partially engulfed, anterior
fermenting in a pulsing, pinkened darkness.
I don’t know why I told you this.
In the moment before, I was trying to convince myself of my circulatory efficiency
after the familiar anxiety began its
drowsy humming.
yes, my heart is pumping this
red warmth through.
And I had thought about how I read somewhere that blood is blue inside,
which made me feel adopted
and suspicious of the parent-god who makes crimson of cobalt.
I have only ever been a vassal of an enfeebling devotion,
but I will say I have had no companion whose fingers graze the skin of my wrist as
softly as my own.
Still, I wonder what of love I have ever truly understood.
yes, my heart is pumping this
red warmth through.
Kendall Southworth is a previously unpublished poet residing in Sarasota, Florida. She is an environmental restorationist by profession. When she's not trudging through the swamps of the gulf coast, she writes. You can find her (uninhibited, frequently bizarre) musings on Twitter.
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