Alexis Pope

MAYBE THESE ARE MY LAST WORDS EVER

but really i’ve always had a dramatic
tongue i perform my duties with

a rehearsed apathy i mean the ends
are most like the ends & i never dug the remix

sure i’ll trade you my wuornos for your gonzales
but what i really want to know is

what are your plans for the apocalypse
i mean really heads or tails i’m ending

up hips propped to face that blackened sky
orange light sucked out & my mouth yawning

for that dark saint of lost women what
was her name or is that too easy too basic

that same line about the time of the month
where i bleed right through my dress

so black you can’t even tell if i’m breathing
it means you’re doing it wrong

thrust my mouth on every hose
wide parched with the gray dirt underneath

hard cake filled with worms the silky wet of me
waits for the walls to come down all it means

is less work & the truth is i’m bored again
wine gone dry & these doubts keep ringing

the corners collect the skin this body
is no more than a hostel examine

the width of my thighs or correct cave
of my clavicle until foreign materials gather

brush me off again i wait for that first smack
sour taste rushing these teeth

porous beauty on the mantel sighs
& i begin to suck my thumb

this world never gave a cuss the grass
only felt good b/c it couldn’t care less

i’ll end this real smart promise just wait
for me to straighten up a bit

scrub the mildew from the tiles ma said
it’s the hidden dirt you should get good & clean

but my freedom waits on a beach of mud
one broken sail with that face nailed to the front

when i stop comin around don’t start lookin
that’s the thing with endings

Alexis Pope is the author of three chapbooks, most recently BONE MATTER (The Lettered Streets Press). Her work can be found in Guernica, Washington Square, Octopus, Forklift, Ohio, and Pinwheel, among others. Her first collection, SOFT THREAT, will be published by Coconut Books this fall. She lives & writes & cries in Brooklyn.

Image courtesy of spDuchamp.