we’ve only seen each other’s wings in the stringed, overwrought dark. you always
insisted on leaving the windows open, your body rinsed in a sacrificial gesture, waiting
for the wind to prey upon your fleshlessness. the stars & their blood blossoming
like a row of guns between our lattices, an unblotted fenetre. i thought of that word
because our biology teacher asked us where the word fenestration comes from & i
smiled at you thinking of your kiss fanned open & volcanic in a forest of capillaries,
your teeth wolfed down by their kettle holes & you knew so you smiled back. to learn
& love the ends & strings of predation knowing that knots only give away your kisses.
we met on the school trip to the botanic gardens you clipped the dandelions
behind my ears like trimming off a thread from your flannel shirt. i kissed you
on the cheek like the good, marbled princess to your feathered butchness. in
the uncleansed wounds of spring we were deafened by pollen & our sweet-eyed
allergies. on the bus ride back to school you asked me if i could tell porcupines
from asteroids & when i didn’t respond you said that both bristles & trailblazers
corrode at the moment of contact, dissolving into the haunted gradient between
artist & god. the holy grail of our promises: the enjambment of a signifier, the
velvet shard of a bloody canvas. under my hands your shoulder blades scream like
a tumor arrested in motion, the vacuum of your wings a wolf print in the killings
of my tongue. at the moment of contact, do your wings blacken like your starriness
in the eye of a gunshot? at the moment of equilibrium, have you unknotted time for
the multiple choice question between honey & consumption? you kiss my forehead
in the foundling dark, your canines dusty like a dandelion—i blow.
ABOUT:
Ariel Wu (she/her) is a high school senior from Shanghai, China. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Chinchilla Lit, Nowhere Girl Collective, and PVLSE. She is an alumna of the Iowa Young Writers Studio and Juniper Young Writers. When she is not writing about the quandaries of girlhood and over-analyzing literature, she can be found playing the viola and attending K-pop concerts. You can find more of her work on Instagram at @ariel_by_sylvia_plath.
EDITOR'S SONG PAIRING: scesikart — Volcanic Surfer - 印象派(inshouha)
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