a l e x i s    p o p e

 
 

Gutless


I Think That I Would (Die)








































Gutless
 

I'm sideways all the time & every time. I'm eating
always the grapes. Always the lock of the side
metal gate. Stomping the grapes. I birth
the wine. I scream the chickens. Pound
them flat patties. Drip body juice, empty
waist line. Don't eat anymore. Anymore
I wait inside the cupboard for you. Those girls
left a few minutes ago. The bodies young & sponged
with grape sweat. Sweet bird of her belly. You
forgot how I am always looking. These bodies
are missing. Finish the salmon. My fat thigh
bleeding over fat lip I gave you all of it, I gave
you everything. The bodies fill it everywhere. There
are no doors to close. There are no ankles
left. The bodies sing sweet thing. I sweet talk
a pelican baby I thought you were. I thought
I might become a person. A body like that
full, like that with memory of thing. I ate
her with a jelly side. All I have are pictures of bodies,
pictures of girls with the straps whispering on low
arm. My body cannot hurt. I know the night
this happened. You ate through my center
with your sharp sharp. Their mouths told
your secrets even when they could not speak. I twist
a fable through the melt stomach. I eat a feather
to write in blood ink. Meat between lace sheet,
I don't know how to flatten them out for you.

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I Think That I Would (Die)
 

My first blood, first born, I laid you | in a deep nest of sheets. Buried | my knife into a fox | breath with you | next to me. I kept forgetting | how basic your skin. The ordinary | orgy with my hive chest. I will explode | onto you with such force. I will push | over your carriage. Flake this skin, | baby. Face this face, baby. Eat my | bones, darling. Blackened shoulder | blades, you were my most fragile | wish. I saved these treats for last. | My finale where you, bird, rest | no more inside me. In the future, | there will be no more fruit. | There will be no more branches | on which your selfish hide may | breathe. Along my side I carved | a statue. I put your hands | on my hipbones. I put your | lungs in the microwave. I ate | blueberries the first time | we mated. I ate raspberries after | my first kill. The way my teeth | remember skin, I'm not sure how | to explain.

  

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ALEXIS POPE is the author of Girl Erases Girl (Dancing Girl Press, 2013). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Washington Square, Guernica, Columbia Poetry Review, Jellyfish, and Beecher's, among others. She is co-curator of The Big Big Mess Reading Series.

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