It's just poetry, it won't bite

Gluttony


11.20.18 Posted in today's words by

Susan Sonde’s most recent poem to appear here was “Excursion” (October 2018).

Gluttony
By Susan Sonde

I want to be a moth and occupy light—spread wings against the limpid, dangerous backdrop of night and its supernovas, fly in orbit—in the face of—reason, then double back, lay a wreath—a cornerstone to night, before I depart this brief, courting life.

I am gazing at the edge of a white classroom. I’m occupying a headache with thorns—a cloudburst—a nimbus, a halo. I want knowledge—access—permission—pandemonium. Entry—on the south side—on the north face—on the eastern edge—along the western divide before I go dumbstruck into the unmeasured abyss wearing death’s dowry.

Tell me—does wheat break bread with wine, are shrouds—recyclable? Can calories count, cakes consume? Who frosts them then sets the candles in, takes them out and breaks them? Someone, not you, nails carpenter ants to billboards—wolves to placards, plays a crooked

deck; uses the ribs of his backers to lean on, ousts the sun from 2’s and 3’s by default. Lessens its luster—uses the sheen of his microwave, heat from reflection to warm his meat, surface mirroring his exudations: drops of saline parsed out to bristles on the back of his leathery neck.

The elephant in the boardroom is bottomless and the space used up—room gone hypoxic. People dressed in their bleak stories—blood ischemic, tissues cyanotic, loud cries-sotto voce—they crave infusion, suffusion—a little air. They want to heal the windows of their external hard drives—want activity lights back on—operating systems to last, led lights to illuminate the hashtags of the haters and redeemers.

Whale oil is burning in service stations, smoke from oil-burning lanterns are filling up restrooms. Someone from afar leaps as an animal would fall, as a safe would drop—cracking open some distant water’s dark.

Is this a movie I’m watching? The motive is beautiful. The elephant spotless. My mouth reels. I spin vases with kisses inside them. Beards climax. My kisses are lauded. Hands reach into the depths for applause. This is my bread, my repository—my granary—my oligarchy: my factory of unstitched flags. I rule the edge. I hem the stars. I sew with blisters

my tents of mercy.



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