poem for valentine’s day #21
MP Armstrong
borrowed honey waits in the pantry
so much honey that the bees envy me
honey drizzled into my mouth in lazy half-tablespoons
so much honey i could leave tomorrow
throw every flower lip and chocolate tongue
under the snow-ready wheels of passing traffic chains spiderwebbed
over black rubber branding squishy pink petals into lacework flush
against the pavement i could puppet that roadkill into a real heart by morning
strings sticking up from hollow stems straight and sharp
as needles and blood milky and sweet and gold sinking into pebbled concrete
do you think your ticker could survive an ohio winter?
mine doesn’t even need to try.
mine holds hands with the morton girl
opens its legs in brackish water
waits for yours to wake up
make out with the salt lick
curdle the honey
MP Armstrong is a 20-year-old disabled queer writer from Ohio, studying English and history at Kent State University. Their work appears or is forthcoming in Perhappened, Prismatica Magazine, and Hominum Journal, among others, and their debut chapbook, who lives like this for such a cheap price?, is published by Flower Press (2021). Find them online @mpawrites and at mpawrites.wixsite.com/website.
Ceasarean
Cheryl Aguirre
If you cut me open,
Would I bleed?
Would it be glittering
Shining jewels and
Entrails segmented
With white fat and
Filmy juice
Pomegranate potent
Bursting and ripe?
Or is it matte and deep,
Like leaves perched
Before their fall?
It’s so lewd
All of the muscle
Flashing itself
Violently, ecstatically.
How arousing and
Confusing it must be.
Caesarean cuts are
Red greedy slits
Opened, then sutured.
Pregnant women are
Like tomatoes,
Or overripe plums
When it’s all said and done.
Cheryl Aguirre is a queer biracial poet based in Austin, Texas. You can find their previously published work in Ghost City Press, decomp journal, and The Whorticulturalist. You can follow them at @drowsy_orchid on Instagram and @Wheat_Mistress on Twitter.