Things I Miss

by Jacob Drum

A soft slip of skin

Sucked between my lips

Stretched

From the deep of your clavicle

To the tip of my tongue.

The small hairs

On the back of your thighs

That brush my hand

And move with the roll

Of your leg

As I pull you near.

Blood-warm peach skin

On the back of your neck

That fold my nose and mouth

With taut flesh over tendons

And smells of hair

And afternoon showers.

Cleft-bowl dimples

In the small of your back

That glisten with sweat

And taste of salted fruit.

The bone of your jaw

That catches your hairs

And meets my kiss

As it combs

The lobe of your ear.

The dulcet, barely conscious

Escape of breath

As I find the knot

Of your soul.

Mary

by Marina Blitshteyn

this is the business

of taut calves perched on high points.

Sappho taught me hip motions

waves and space-forms for the art of

limbs.

this is the business of wading neck-deep thick in a body of water.

a keeper of vowels, my secret,

submission.

echoes of Please, Master Ginsberg and Moby’s Ultimate

Fuck Song.

beats. pounds. dollars.

this expectation has a price.

this stomach has devices.

this night isn’t so bad, at the moment.

this is the business

of your skin for mine

for ours

proximity in the curly dark, otherness for the sake of

another.

music taught me how to

arch my back and close my eyes. sky taught me

how to lift my collar bone and look up

this is the business of looking up

for the sordid affair of eyes,

right now, the black-hole mouth

of tension and utterance, gaping.

few stars escape.

tomorrow we’ll mean nothing more

this business flirts with second-spent amnesia.

somewhere in the process of sweat

I forgot I was given this power.

the ability to be exhausted, again

held heavy from the inside.

lamp glowing dim and thoughtful as it passes,

scattered sheets and shoe-soles,

bottles and some change left on the floor.