Pearls

when she reaches wet velvet inside herself / cut-stones down her spine laid on cold floor / she
reaches two pearls melting in the clutch of sea anemones / a slim woman performs an arched
handstand on the rim of a wine glass reflective in darkness / smooth white ovaries smashed like
fresh chicken eggs pouring out thick yolks in her palms / cartoon suns animated with smiles on
children’s tv shows / a veined fetal chicken / dead sunflower for an eye / slips out between her
fingertips / its slick body drops limp & warm beside her as her breaths slow down in search of a
pulse / a pulse on its damp feathers / she buries her love under the snow / snow never melts when
red curtains are drawn / never opened in the heat / her small feet keep stepping over an earth
encrusted with snow in these graveyards / a thousand acres of pure white / creamy blue /
inhabited by striped serpents rattling wooden coffins / aerial fabrics swirl around her as she
laughs / she dances with her bare ribs / breasts / in the sun flashing through thin spaces in the
blue sheet thrown above her / she dances with footprints bleeding overripe apples into grasses
burnt in a lightning strike / a thousand snowflakes form the silhouette of a serpent devouring its
own tail in an endless chain traveling across the sky / she moves like a bird the flock left behind
in winter / feathers erupting into flames as her laughter finds secret spaces in hollow trunks / she
reaches inside herself with bare hands to uproot a poisonous plant / wreathing its tendrils across
her womb / threading the plates of her skull / it sprays seeds pumping in her vessels until she is
strapped motionless to the earth / buried under the snow.