Consider this a death & listen. In the showers we strip naked

{until there’s zero}. Gravity. & no stress but.

Its jaws. Are straining. Our necks. Consider this

bloodsucking. Alien. We can’t.
See. Buffering. You’re lying. On
top. Coming off. Our leash.

Mount. Moving. Neither of us. Can prove. A chance. Of relief. Run. Blood.
Thick. Boom. Bunnies. Extreme. Raging on the flame. As {flames}. Through

trees. Planets. Boreworms. Rings. How are there so few left as there are. So
many. I’m counting. High Scores. Unbuttoning. & turning {extra}. Lives.
Into yours. Into a number taken. At a deli. Slicing off. An extra hour. That loses.
Its honey. Glazed. Rabbit. Meat moves in. On me. With sloping axe. & forest heat

{turning} glassy

eyes of smoked herring. Buckles the knees. Let’s get real about
this. Real is a disease. I left hours ago. A rabid animal is not so
bold. As a force with bones to grind. {& diseases that hide.} In
brains. Stuffed. & fur-lined. Could be. Hex or. Hatbox. Real is
taking a single train. Out of service. Out of control. The inferno

is really. A dot-matrix or dial-up. That exploded. Long ago.
We jeer at those. Still holding on. To joy. Stick. & control. Extinct.
& floppy. Eared-ones that still live & lean into. Ray tube. Ray
guns. & neck cradling each one. We think. We aren’t

{cassettes}

loading. Long, long ago. Our legends. Never shone. But trickled
off. Zero. Ticked. Against. A leg. Like a death. Sentence. Consider
this &. Listen. You were saying — I love you — More than. Just as.
Falling. Low-res. Do you wish to save. Your progress. What miracle.

You snap. Hard. My neck. Pixelated. Lock. Screen. Our clothes
wet as skunned. Animals. & dripping.

Will leave.

No off.
Spring.

{Still. In my ear.} Hold. God.
 
God Yes. Somewhere

this is happening

without intent
or making veins.
Of tails. Somewhere

{unnamed
 
& most} incapable.

Of dying.

{Somewhere}. Never. Somatic. Only.
Heat.
& Edges.
Wetter

{somewhere}

Gravity is a grave. That will win. Its. Hunting.

Rosebud Ben-Oni is a recipient of the 2014 NYFA Fellowship in Poetry and a 2013 CantoMundo Fellow; her most recent collection of poems, turn around, BRXGHT XYXS, was selected as Agape Editions’ EDITORS’ CHOICE, and will be published in 2019. She writes weekly for The Kenyon Review blog. Her work appears in POETRY, The American Poetry Review, The Poetry Review (UK), Tin House, Guernica, Black Warrior Review, TriQuarterly, Prairie Schooner, Poetry Northwest, Arts & Letters, among others; recently, her poem “Poet Wrestling with Angels in the Dark” was commissioned by the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York City, and published by The Kenyon Review Online. She teaches creative writing at UCLA Extension’s Writers’ Program and The Speakeasy Project. Find her at 7TrainLove.org

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