by Jonah Howell
Artwork by W. Jack Savage
I am stretched at your grave
and will lie
no will lie about
yet will do no doubt do
slide back the closer
closer to the lover
why’d have die to
die was too soon
left me croon I’ll
Fly me tooo the moooooon
but can’t no left
me slip off
covers cov’ring
ringing dancing
round and round the
no the breathing not breathing
pale with cold yes must be cold that
please be cold just
no.
Knife out slips out scalpel
caught from Uni store that
scalpel sharp a flicky wicky
slick across the foot out
oozes sharp formaldehyde from
under lovely loverhide oh sweet
love loving darling sweet oh tangy
loves thy stench I do no did do does the
tarsal wrapped in skin nope
tendonslits and tarsal loosed
now placed in hand mmm lovely footbone
bone…bone…
Smells like lover lover lost but
footbone handed lift my hand and
mmmmm footbone
to bone yes lover
loving far beyond the grave I’m
slave to thy sweet souring flesh and
now thy bone.
Flicky friction bony drying slides along my
bony flicktion sliding yes my lover
slave me still. Our nights and days
a squelching splash a breathy flash of
vocal quivers matching hipshivers
stained world stained bowls
spraying life across our
shivering hips but
now just tarsal holds our soul our
spirits yes hydraulic pumpers jumping
straight ventricular sprays of splashing brains all
mashed up in this tarsal ooh
its ridges, lovely ridges curved like
lover’s ridges.
Microcosmic pumping joining
mem’ry of our sweaty humping
mouths unjoined but joined in churning
burns of flaming cooling melting
oneness.
Tarsal rubs up bony quivers
quiver, yes, warmshiver, yes,
spout rivers! yes! a shower spurting
life as loving we saw running over
glistening hips that now in gravestones’ shadows
shake still slaves to lover’s living shape and
pour out dead love on the cape that
shrouds dear lover’s paler form.
Pocketed tarsal.
Cover recovering.
Bone rehidden,
limply dead, once
deathtouch risen,
corpse’s smell still
lingering poison,
that so sweet it stays.
Oh, moistened love,
may I…
Cover uncovered
bone replaced and
cuddling coolly
meshing warmth with
dear, my unbreath’d
soul please take my
pulse we’ll half it,
turn, please, turn to me!
Yet still…
Cover recovered,
cuddle resumed.
The air, we’ll half it,
my love, in the dark.
Awakening cold, ah, my heat was inadequate,
dark, moistened air my love still unbreathes.
Cover reuncovered,
I step to the nightgrass.
A robin on spindly oaktwigs, it
chirps what I’d already thought.
Scalpel to limp bone,
a slit at the hilt and I
scream to the night for a
loss and a loss and a
slit down the center and
slits through the sides and my
once-beloved bony folds out
in a krovdripping string.
Stringy I string it
a heartshape atop my love’s
casket with blood as a good heart should have.
Dripping krovvy I sway to the
casketside rivers of
dead life pour out from my
now-useless face—
as what good’s a face when my
lover can’t love it, eh?
Scalpel a-scalping intestines I
creechscrapping pour out beside my love’s
deathground and up to the
heart I take fingery gripping and
slosh it on top of the cover,
that lover should have it
forever and always, amen.
At this I saunter off,
lighter, sticky, useless,
as any good runner after a good hearty run.
It was a good run, my sweatheart.
I remember first reading this and being completely floored at how the flow and euphoric tone somehow made this scene at once more creepy and bearable. Tight poem