artemis
BY CHRISTINA IM
It is dark and I am trying to tell you
why all my poems are about weapons.
In the space between us, my voice
is a heart-skin hemorrhage: the color
of savagery. I can’t bring myself to look
beyond your face so I imagine a hawk
on your shoulder. Imagine its talons
closing around something softer
than the oil spill of my tongue,
which is even now undoing itself
onto the table. This is how I hunt:
I step into the open, undress
my arrows, will the wind into song.
Severance is a clean word.
It is the only clean thing I know
how to make. Your hands fall
out of mine. Outside, the moon waits
for sinew to grow. There are no true
synonyms for loneliness. You are
so pretty once your eyes are dry
and the night is baying for your blood.
