after Juliet Cook’s Planchette

Sly gait to my bedside
is wonton and sickly.
I want to see you fall.

You’re an arsenic lure.
I’m the fish
who likes dark miasma.

Bandages cover knees, ankles
blood diamond slivers.
Nip pink cheeks.

Pierce whisper with bird scream.
The sparrows grew
men’s faces.

Swans weave along the front lawn
use a metal brace under one wing.

Shut us in.
Dilapidated thigh machine.

Wait for me under pond scum
Magic the salty doom kiss
to pull us under.

Our bed sheen manikin.
Cat claw these Byron braids.
Play bone saw and skull limp.
You won’t feel me until I’ve gone.

come in my darling

I don’t have words for you but
this battering ram,
this needle.

Jennifer MacBain-Stephens

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Jennifer MacBain-Stephens went to NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and now lives in the DC area. She is the author of eight chapbooks and two full length poetry collections forthcoming from Yellow Chair Review and Stalking Horse Press. Her chapbook “Clown Machine” recently came out from Grey Book Press this summer. Recent work can be seen or is forthcoming at Jet Fuel Review, Lime Hawk, The Birds We Piled Loosely, Queen Mob’s Teahouse, Inter/rupture, Poor Claudia, concis, and decomP. 

Visit: http://jennifermacbainstephens.wordpress.com/.

Artwork: Lara Zankoul
Website: http://www.larazankoul.com/

30 Oct This entry was published on October 30, 2016 at 12:05 am and is filed under 21 (October 2016), Archive, Poetry. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.