Something Malnourished in Our Hands
You were the lover with whom terminal velocity felt possible, probable, until motions at matching tempo failed to render us equal, the nothing amassed.
I am forever the blah-tinted face in mirrors, flirting with terror.
I am marking the hue of this self-righteous sunset bible belting its way around us like the worst-case-scenario-kiss needs tongue.
In the church pew, spittle declares itself decadent as drool turns denial into a gift horse’s mouth.
I have no hallelujah that isn’t drunk, isn’t drowning.
This thing in our hands, fragile
as the zoo-caged mammal pacing the back-forth of bars, or lonely anemone aching into passacaglia.
The famish of flame retardant fabrics falling from my sexwise left shoulder
and so little left to nourish. Put your mouth on my brokest parts.
Alina Stefanescu was born in Romania and lives in Alabama with four incredible mammals. Find her poems and prose in recent issues of Juked, DIAGRAM, New South, Mantis, VOLT, Cloudbank, New Orleans Review Online, and others. Her debut fiction collection, Every Mask I Tried On, won the Brighthorse Books Prize. She serves as Poetry Editor for Pidgeonholes and President of the Alabama State Poetry Society. More arcana online at www.alinastefanescuwriter.com or @aliner.
