Each flick of his tongue against my foot
a smoothness I didn’t expect
fire so sudden logs high stacked by lovers
how bright the first tongue
licked malleolus traced tibia knee
I could not look at the sky
all was a gray through eyes blanked
as smoke stroked
his lips in the dark dog-warm against
the flat of my foot
became pain became not became flame
melting to inside of thigh
his teeth pierced to possess and I
gave over possession gave up body
gone of flesh the color flashed upwards
of its own accord until I
of him had tasted my mouth an open
gulped smoke as sweet water
my ears remembered the river hymn singing
O glory the sweet sharp
taste of feast seared meat on his tongue
holding deep the history
of char a new self the old unfleshed
of flesh
flayed thighs O I took him inside
implored O
God on the cross that thief who You
saved my breath
my breath was his breath and each breath
a gift given taken each
smooth flicker licked the lids off my eyes
under sky’s blue skin
stretched by the river frozen to mirror
the syrup sharp stench
of foot unfooting itself
black blossoms
the char taste of feast when I licked he
rose high
as my chin the fire stroked sure as a skill
as a hand
stroked and softly we were our own
melting
fire a stillness I watched and the sun
in its separate burning
the ice threw off its blanket below
the hinge of my knee
bent the memory kneeling
down to him
his teeth a secret I held
in the town square
shadows cast flame like flame
wild
my breasts bit bleeding I held his child
hidden
child daughter a wail inside my wail
behind the peel
beneath my flesh a hope opened
of mine own
peeling thigh to not thigh not foot
he held in his right
hand slipped itself through my skirts
to find
not knotted rope not run not body no
the small
pink bundled beneath
red inside
not mouth not wanted not water
not again giving
not any more mirror the rivers of water
not again giving up
throat dissolve resolve terminus wanted
giving up
became not snow the waters he washed
calendula candlewax
child daughter wail hymn my disappear
hope of water
to vanish my scent off his body
his hand held
the twig its starting flame
Emma Bolden’s chapbooks include How to Recognize a Lady (part of Edge by Edge, Toadlily Press), The Mariner’s Wife (Finishing Line Press), and The Sad Epistles (Dancing Girl Press). She was a semi-finalist for the Perugia Press Book Prize and a finalist for the Cleveland State University Poetry Center’s First Book Prize and for a Ruth Lily Fellowship. She teaches at Georgetown College and is poetry editor of the Georgetown Review.
