A new poem by Johanna Cosgrove.

THE THING IS

i don’t know how to write about you

while my heart

bloated

is mince for the jackdaws

the slack jaw

you pried open with careful fingers

stroking my tongue as

a treasure

belonging to only you

my whole mouth bruised by a familiar tenderness

is unmoving and silent

humiliated by the turn of your back

the thing is

I’m probably dead now

and may remain so forever

having been passed over

and then

passing over

only to cry in public behind dark sunglasses

a corpse stuffed with Chinese food and the laughter of seated couples

the thing

is

that

the night time belonged to only us for a while

the bright glint of your heels striding ahead of me

was to be the thing

I reach across oceans for

my hands outstretched

as in

the mutilated limbs of a 5 am dance floor

while the dj stoically plays on

my eyes glassy mirrors of yours

my underwear in your pocket

my lips wet with greed

the thing is, that, my heart has now stopped entirely

crammed with things like

a day-to-night quilted vest

the teeth in your grin

2 perfect silver earrings

My veins are blue

holding what I couldn’t say

too risky!

for life’s precarity

for celestial intervention

for………. this

I don’t know.

but the thing is

all there seems to be in the

mess

in the diabolical miasma

in the unending stretch of the void

is

you