Susan Darlington
Melt
It’s the flicker in your eyes that melts
the darkness, that luminates your frame
as I step into your grotesque shadow.
From here your breath frosts my sight
and I struggle to meet your indolence.
Under your gaze my blue hands
turn into water and drip away,
fingers of ice sliding into the gutter.
Numbed from the touch of your skin
I bare my teeth and sink them into your cheek.
You swab the blood with petals
plucked from the six white roses
you offered me, one to commemorate each night
I spent curled into the nape of your neck
catching the bad dreams in my hooded lids.
They remain snared in the whorls there,
red beads reflecting the curve of your spine
as you stitch together flakes of dead skin
with strands of hair to craft new hands -
new feral paws - to replace those you thawed.
A rich, musky odour rises from them,
and as you work I lean over your shoulder
to lick your wounded cheek, cleanse it
with the mercury that dances on my tongue
and graze the flesh to reveal the fur dermis.
Page(s) 107
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