Matina L. Stamatakis

WINTERING-OVER

(forthcoming in YEW)

*

    & it is in the teeth,
its clang──

            marks of wood &

down,     as fallen soldiers are with chilled blood,

   glass is measured by its frost─ & red brings blue, blue

                & with it, endless blue.

**

I am writing this letter because liquid is no longer

       what it used to be                  & 

                          with it the mercury dips

into another winter.  I am writing as jacinth withers

                             into birds no longer.

            You are growing tight with my teeth,

& gnaw your way into me with a reckless sun. 

Breath rolls in & out of the skin, skin & then

  ***

        only the larynx

will remember your name.

Innocence

In this epithelial tissue a sheen
of glass pattern mosaic silkscreened &

of dew melting into  beaker
 of stars           for    unafraid colors
blending into beasts of dawn's broach

        encountered wings

reflective wings             uncharted wings

  in their virgin sprawl

    [I've seen the vast sights of ghosts & deserts
trapped in the depths of exact mirages more beautiful than tragic]

        wings in the present dream

   in the probability of sleeping to forget reality
wings, & winged the flowering orange, the orchid
mouth & how she remains naked

the same way she was born

    

Inside[out]

Return, at the nape, all indiscretions
──I've want of less pulp, & so a poem
 is naked & stands before the man clutching her insides out.  

& the man is a grasp of unscrupulous flesh

                                                 & the man
                    is not a bird by any stretch of the imagination──is not
                                        so uncommon inside her, is not

or what it was an absentee space
the monstrous growth of dark

---

Matina L. Stamatakis enjoys birds, and bird-related paraphernalia.