Breadcrumb #308

RICHARD QUIGLEY

Yes, I’ve been told about the sea
kept behind two closed doors.

About the mirror, how our breathing
is now monitored

by regime. At times
no one believes me. At times

my mind petals against the better part
of memory

Then rusts. I don’t flinch
for anything and refuse to go quietly.

No further questions,
they told me.

It’s merely customary to fight
in order to stay

locked inside of a flaming city.
Be taught the work and do the work

Guaranteed to break hands. Here,
I’ve heard what it means to love

is chained like a dog
and killing is the new human

victory.
In the sewn-up pockets

of the living, little grim apologies
are carried like stones

which read:
I’m so sorry that you need me.

• • •

Breadcrumb #307

JORDAN FRANKLIN

My unborn son, you were not
meant to thrive here. I am
Death      incarnate, mamba
under a blouse, the trunk
darkening to charcoal. See how
the failed vessels make

an Eden of me, its emerald
leaves dim. Your brothers,
sisters—I loved them all
into the earth. Nothing
rose.         Split me
over an operating table

or a canvas. Soften
the openings in oil.
Your father    opens me
like a wall, ignores
the shaken       columns.
He expects his face

but there      you      are,
ruby-cradled
in this quiet. I plucked
its barbs myself so you may stay
in this redness, its garden heat
intoxicating as a womb.

• • •

Breadcrumb #305

DAVID IACONANGELO

When you
and you
would lie together,
the bed would eat
your recognition:

the smells of your bodies
the tastes of your mouths
the weight of your bodies
upon and beneath;

that knowing of the body,
your most trusted knowing,
your ancestors’ knowing
in their brutal millennia.

And your beloved
was not your beloved.

You
and you
may have felt that something was awry
and groped for light.
There was no light
It wouldn’t go on.

Or else the bed had eaten well
the bones crunched up
no other searching
could take place

it seemed there was
no other knowing
but your ancestors’ knowing
in their brutal millennia.

A yellow door would open then
The lid unscrewed
on jars of laughter

The bed would eat
the last of your knowing.
Your beloved
was not your beloved.

• • •

Breadcrumb #304

ASHLEY LYNNE

i am not the moon, though you've told me of my lunar beauty
you said i was like a tide, pushing and pulling you back and forth
but perhaps you confused the oceanic assault on the shoreline with
the way our pelvic regions danced away from one another
like the repelling of two magnets

you relegated me to a thing of borrowed beauty
said i could never be luminary on my own
no solitary source of light, too filled with a catastrophic darkness
my dark side more prevalent than my bright

but i am much more.  inside me galaxies explode
you've been there to feel the milky way be birthed inside me
you've been there for shooting stars growing inside as my back arches
i am not some black hole consuming
i am an asteroid expanding, collecting burnt out stars (like you) as i set in an orbit
on the course of destruction

• • •