Nightshift as Horsebride,
BY CARLY JOY MILLER
meaning bridled, although
my gown in this
rawhide desire
tulled above the knee
wounds. Soft scrape, the bruises,
a brush of hay.
I barefoot toward my lover
turned groom
turned handler.
Bridled: how I raise
my head, a bucket
full of salt. How I bite cheeks
of pears to jerk
fallacy from my mouth.
Debridement: the harness
snaps in your fist,
eschar violets before
the kiss. Fallacy:
my gums
gleam in moonlight.
The milked-out stars
swoon at my flank,
hiplatched
gate swinging.
Letter to Body Made Shadow
BY CARLY JOY MILLER
or criminal framed transparent
in the belly of a sunlit beast.
What to steal
with your scuffed
mouth and lopsided tongue?
There are no teeth to you.
Silent as carvers’ knives
on the table—hush, listener,
this is a sacrificial act. Always
reduced to feet, my hooligan
shroud. Quiver beneath
the brow, your tongue tipped
with arrowheads for sour
blood. What spree—a lone bulb
you wish to bite. There are no
knives in your back, thank
goodness. What keeps you
tacked to me, my lone
saint of weeds? Maggot—
I mean, may we get
comfortable as suspects
or each other. May we slink
and croon across shrines with our soft
bodies. Our shoes, stones.
LETTER TO BODY MADE Mineral
BY CARLY JOY MILLER
Is your mouth a crater in this country too?
And do you smell medicinal as you pry
hemlock apart in your study
of nerves? When you spring
nettles in a puddle of water,
do they point towards the god you
should pine over next? Tell me you sway
like molasses in summer. Tell me how
you dropped to your knees as if to pray
when the gun ricocheted in your hands.
Isn’t the bullet just a magnet
for iron in blood? Who are the ghosts
falling beside you and are they yours
for haunting? Who straightjackets
your arms to your small back
so you grovel less alone? Is your mother
overbearing with all her white dresses?
Do you agree tongues grate like saws when
spitting truths every hour? Noiseful burden.
How do you contour your afternoons
so they lay flat on your stomach
as you practice sacrificing yourself
to wolves and doves alike?
What were you aiming at
with that gun in your hands?
When we fall, we fall like gravel
with shoulders bruised terribly human.
Nightshift as Doppelgänger
BY CARLY JOY MILLER
Born hellish, hooves and tress.
To be slick, I jellied my insides out.
My heart plummish to enamor rot.
To be your other.
Ever brief.
Accept me—your strange shadow.
Tenet of the tramp dress.
Shiner.
Loose me to a field
and place a mirror beside me.
Loose me to a field
and scythe my chest open
to three crestfallen horses,
to opal,
to evening
varnished in skein.
To plum-reek.
To hooked
bones purled.
