These Songs
by Cherie Bullock

    Beneath
    this tearing
    of quilts and sheets
    sucked by teeth
    and cheekblack
    nights

    are two un-forgiven
    mouths bled in,

    a stillness
    of hand, foot,
    steeliness
    of air.

    We are not
    in this half
    kept storm.

    Only as we
    untake what has been
    crushed on,
    a strain in
    the forgotten,
    into a voice
    fallen
    or gone;
    shoulder-
    will, closed eye.






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