Midnight's Concubine

On December 14, 2010, this poem was accepted into the Bemidji State University New Voices anthology for 2011. More information on New Voices can be found here.

She has nebulae embedded on her fingernails
so you feel
as if you've seen the very edges of the Universe
when she gouges out your eyes.
Her lips spread red lace that
leaves its empty spaces
on the dark side of your sternum.
Her tongue licks a line of shining promises
up and
d
o
w
n your spine,
and they sink their needle edges
into the spaces left behind
by the movement of your backbone.
In that moment,
when the impossible is true,
she bids you
fly
and the moment that you jump
she is waiting at the bottom,
laughing as your bones
break
against the pavement.
It was never your body that she wanted,
no.
It was only your soul.