✷
Sunlight warms the pavement, and I am hungry again.
I wait patiently for sanitation workers to clean
gristle from my teeth. Meat frightens you.
Many things do.
I wait patiently for sanitation workers to clean
gristle from my teeth. Meat frightens you.
Many things do.
I soothe the water in my harbor, cover my crevices.
But my tongue is concrete and paved stone;
my bones are steel, cast-iron, scraping offices.
I cannot stop the grinding.
I make you comfortable,
before the end. I carve into myself
courtyards, vestibules
that bleed peach trees and rose bushes
for your pleasure. I paint walls
in lichen and ivy, speckle alleys
with bursts of marigolds. Poppies guide you
to me; I’m a romantic, can’t you
see?
I open my arms,
your ankle twists,
your neck cracks
under my lips.
Blood
sluices
down your spine
and mingles
with the waste in me.
I do not devour. I take
time to savor.
I section
each of your capillaries,
bite
through your every tendon.
I sip
from marrowbones with
strips
of skin
settled
atop my gums.
How sweetly
each of you warm me.
✷
Faustine Bugeaud is a French-American poet and speculative fiction writer from Paris. Deeply influenced by her studies in History and Art History, her work is almost always haunted by the past. Her poetry has appeared in Livina Press. You can find her on social media @faustinebugeaud
