He waits for a hot night, hoping
to taste origin in her blood. He’s used
to the commute: the road
kill on the off-ramp, the flies
throwing their short lives
against wind shields.
He hears the angry boys
flick their lighters at liquor stores,
looks into their minds sees
the fathers they miss
and Queenie rise from a bed
in slow motion, knows
where to go, his briefcase rattling.
But He wasn’t expecting hips like this.
Not since,
since the world was bit
in half. When she turns he feels the brute
force of her body asleep, an avalanche
crumbles in his right ear, wants
to snake into her ear and replace
the lioness
with a tip-toeing uncle or a fire extinguishing
man, squints to see the hell she might carry
within like a shadow compass, but sees
her mother, a colossal tree bending
into prayer. It haunts him at breakfast–Infinite wrath
eating stillborn
eggs. He shushes the new
arrivals with wasps, trying to recall a lullaby,
now curdled to ancient milk.
Nikki Harlin is a MFA candidate at California State University, San Bernardino where she is a staff editor for Ghost Town Literary Magazine and writes poetry focusing on both the working class city of San Bernardino and the uncanny. Nikki’s recent publications include Camel Saloon, the Pacific Review, HelloHorror, and Electric Cereal.
–Art by Menerva Tau