two poems
headless
headless covered in dust
i don’t know where to go from here
so deep the chasm between malice
& hunger does a being punish
another being for needing
it’s obvious the punishment is the
crime
headless covered in dust was
a mouse in the corner before
& now something else a
question or a current of energy that
previously wore a body
one heart is not enough to last through
so much death
any trapped thing
sometimes the night sometimes
sometimes the breath sometimes
the sun in the eyes & the sound of a
certain bird the way the air moves &
the way it smells sits on the tongue
or a voice remembered a
hoof-beat on packed earth what is
unbearable & what is refuge &
what is left when all else is gone
a wish to fall into to be held in
beloved arms but it’s too much
what is left to give when i’ve been
boiled away who is left to ask
when every gift has a price
the body consumes itself is that clear
devours itself like any trapped thing
__________________________________________
Jay Besemer is a poet, performer, artist and occasional editor whose books and chapbooks include The Ways of the Monster (forthcoming,*KIN(D)/The Operating System 2018), Crybaby City (Spuyten Duyvil), Telephone, Chelate (both Brooklyn Arts Press), and Aster to Daylily (Damask Press). He was a finalist for the 2017 Publishing Triangle Award for Trans and Gender-Variant Literature. He tweets frequently @divinetailor and sometimes does things on Tumblr http://jaybesemer.tumblr.com.