by Claire Rychlewski
Life's fluffer
It’s often the master
who loses sight of the line
A hungry dog can’t distinguish the meat
from the hand that feeds
It can only smell
what more I have to give
Still I stretch my fingers
for the lullaby of a warm tongue
When I look down
miles and miles of blood
Destroyer
Mercy is relative to the weight
of a closed or open hand
The clarity of blood in your mouth
Every summer more violent than the last
Sunburn, wasp sting, quinine
Abort your whole life
How much would you charge to haunt a house?
The fixed gaze of fate
There is no way to the moon. The moon is the way.
A moth can make the best of it.
She knows how to think cool thoughts.
Pickling herself and gorging on cashmere.
Hanging fire for a lover able to resist.
The siren call of the bulb’s false sun.
A man who recognizes the face of God.
A happy camper. A cool customer.
Flat against the wall, she has her baby alone.
Watching the death spiral; waiting her turn.
Nova rising
You hated the barbed hair sprouting from your skin
Gripping the twisted spokes with silver-tongued tweezers
You’d make yourself bleed. There was love in the mutilation,
An attendance to your truer self: an angel in a blue kimono
You spent hours stretched over white-tiled tub
Remaking.
Claire Rychlewski is the prose editor for SARKA. Her chapbook "Born to Rot" was published in 2022, and her poem "Wifetime visions" was featured in Best of the Net 2024. She just finished her first full-length poetry manuscript.