try in an hour remind me tomorrow

inherent fallacy in “washed clean.”
only diluted, solved in basic
amnia, and magicked again by heat in air.
like the salt ring on your hat
like the impossible jackpot
is dissolved, rather, resolved
in a geyser of roseate flame
in both of my hands.

there is a seed of some sort
sprouting, noncommittal, in the blue-green
molded rind of a lemon
and i am the velvet
in a dumpster-sized casket, double-parked.
i keep it after it splinters like a turtle shell,
shatters like a glass balloon of sand
and homunculi and is exposed to air
loudly for the first time. i have a dream:
my nail lifts off of my fingertip
and there is no pain, just repulsion.

i’m not sure if i’ve already said it, but
i am brooding over the internal alchemical vessel,
impaled on symbols as bigger psychic tides,
thinking about being a magnet — how that would
drag metal into me. that would
beat the shit out of me forever.

there is a sliding glass door in the inner brain.
also, it looks like a pearl made of pink champagne.
i run straight through it, and bleed
out each hour, at least. recline limp me
under a fold in my guts. think of it
as another dead tooth, canal through
the pulp of it, crowned.

i just keep holding still things inside of my mouth:
secret anaerobe: inner body driving dead soldier
container, waiting for nothing to happen, for once.

 

 

ritual for kissing your fist

between your thumb and fore
finger pinched
in the groove
on the pad

low-slung
autumn blows two leaves
against each other.
the peeking death
of côtes de provence.
slow and sweating cold,

i believe in the efficacy of desire
put upon
my thighs. feel long.
flirty wound in the lip:
socket for the top
-right canine.

a hole in the mouth,
withholding,
gone before you get
used to it. kiss-bruised:
big-mouthed,
spare and lissom

for the first time
it is
true love:
my eyes,
my brain,
and my trunk.

slippery peeled
vision of me in a window,
sun-glassed in the aureole.
this was the summer i tried
to grow the petals with the sepal fixed:
flexed closed.

this was the summer cracked
in half, nepenthe,
yolk spilling into the solar oven
yolk spilling
filling space under fingernails
love you when you
are there playing you
in the tv show

love you when you
peel up banana under
fingertips. watching anything
double triple
feature. love you

when you crack open
on the shucking knife,
supple meat, medium-salt,
medium soft under flat of tongue
low-slung. fantasy running
through the bridge of the song
our legs rubbing together
bouncing against one another
here and gone in slo-mo
antennae pert surveilling

love you
when you
sting like a bee
stink like a distillery
sting like a big raspberry
love watching you rinse and heal
bubble up and learn about me on your palms
carve the river through the footpath and be a thousand with me

carve a cross in a hollow point
and put it in me

 

---

 

zach blackwood is a Samantha on the verge of tears in philadelphia, pa. he has poems published in peach mag, voicemail poems, bedfellows magazine, maudlin house, SPF literary magazine, tenderness yea, and other places. he is a triple air sign which is to say, he may seem distant, but he’s actually completely absent. He lives with 2 beautiful brown dogs named pig and squire. follow @blackwhom for poetry but mostly pouty selfies.