We are undoing these wounds, undoing these forgivings stored under the stairs. Wait for the holdout, the smoke-laden faces pushing against glass. We see nothing for miles. We don’t remember the house burning or study the flight patterns of birds. I like you, creature, set at the level of little windows. The house burning will be our new children, little soft haired voice fountains. We will be the mamma and we will be the papa. We will remember this place swollen, the wet look of brass. Some shape our hands made. Reprinted with permission from Tricks with Creature Copyright © 2012 by Natasha Kessler

OUR NEW WOLF HEADS WANDER by Natasha Kessler

Your hollowed voice, a pendulum. A gunnysack full of moth wings. We don’t have mothers, but we still hide things from them. Tether under our breathing ribs. Paperly in our new skin. Mouths open. Mouths full of moth dust. I would kill you just to remember you. And the swinging in this room. Reprinted with permission from Dismantling the Rabbit Altar Copyright © 2012 by Natasha Kessler

UNTITLED by Natasha Kessler

I. Hunger, or hillsides blooming under skin under touch under tones, or flora ascending across the horizon. A little collection of white hairs and thin blue twists of grass descending from cloudfields, or fauna fantods under current under air. All this is to say that we're too late; we watch horizons collapse and hold nothing but ourselves underwater, scribbling sea missives on soaked parchment. Nerve endings bloom with anemone bouquets. Our limbs rest on drawn-up knees loose, not loosened. A mouthful of bees in lampfire folds, unfolds, refolds back into hillsides blooming under hunger. Reprinted with permission from SDVIG Copyright © 2012 by Natasha Kessler and Joshua Ware

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