1913issue6online

159 Inside the Construction : My Aegisthus Father, you seduced her to shut me out. A lisping at your bare feet until lips strip and ruin. Pine top splay pointing, pine guilt spreads needles splintering glass. Your eyes strain forest dust and bend. This stone broken by sand. These eyes fissured by bones. A dumb blue jay echoes muter near our house, where her bricks crush plumage raw. Thhh his feathered wind. What? Father, you choose never, until, or anyone. A blood forest answers only with blood. Her veins collect lines in this red light. Inside, her inner orchard wilts your slate that promises lies but grows not. Darker underground, sag the fat wet fruit you thrust. Into my mouth, stuff those fallen needles and husk my cotton flowering. Thhh a blue jay sings. Who buried whom and what died first? Until a seed of gooseflesh digs bright into hers or mine or yours, sing from all gardens outside your coffin of a sometimes grief. -Alexandra Mattraw

1913issue6online

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