Desire is a ghost tessellating the path
that carries you to this shrine.
Fumes dissipate at your approach,
thrashing against the sky
to thicken in your throat:
you, who have stalled
on this very same spot
along this very same road,
snake a hose through the tear in my hull
until it meets the overcooked gob of flesh
where my will used to be,
& you wrap your lips to the end
flapping like an alien sex appendage
& siphon until midnight erupts
in a gush, hot & tacky.
Look: footprints in the dust,
a nest of discarded vipers
writhing in a culvert.
No one thinks to press
an ear to my body.
Listen to that purr:
even lightning can sizzle
inside a shuttered mouth.
that carries you to this shrine.
Fumes dissipate at your approach,
thrashing against the sky
to thicken in your throat:
you, who have stalled
on this very same spot
along this very same road,
snake a hose through the tear in my hull
until it meets the overcooked gob of flesh
where my will used to be,
& you wrap your lips to the end
flapping like an alien sex appendage
& siphon until midnight erupts
in a gush, hot & tacky.
Look: footprints in the dust,
a nest of discarded vipers
writhing in a culvert.
No one thinks to press
an ear to my body.
Listen to that purr:
even lightning can sizzle
inside a shuttered mouth.
Ed is a teacher and the author of the poetry chapbook Sauteing Spinach With My Aunt (Desert Willow Press, 2018). Other words can be found in Water/Stone Review, Hippocampus Magazine, The American Journal of Poetry, Sky Island Journal, Trampset, One Teen Story, Dreams Walking, & more. Readers can follow him on Twitter (@EdDoerrWrites), read his TV blog (overstuffeddvr.com), and visit his website (eddoerr.com).