Sarah Escue
Afterbirth
maiden mare rib-thin falls
asleep standing in the river
her ligaments soften & unspool
she pulls pebbles from their muddy beds
breaks them with her teeth
like water she remembers
everything holds on to nothing
pearly membranes rupture
aflood with pink-bellied fish the river tantrums
hemorrhages on rock-hips
mare bites the blood-cord swallows it as a prayer rots between her teeth
the body always intervenes
hungry
emerging through pines
in the hot stink of night—
an archive of longing
from Utterances
thaw {v. THô}
speech dissolves
within a lost after-
noon
turnip roots untwist twist untwist
rush of blue cold
rush of [
]
constellation drawn by the hush
of skin on skin
—dark chorus
wintered by ruin
wolf {n. woo lf}
your hunger is specific
tongue to teeth to lips
in snow bloody paw prints.
a boy yells timber
a boy yells
timber a boy yells
timber
Sarah Alcaide-Escue is a poet, editor, artist and literary translator. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing and Poetics from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics and a BA in Creative Writing from the University of South Florida. Her work appears in DIAGRAM, Permafrost, Lullwater Review, Atticus Review, Dialogist, Wildness and other publications. She is a poetry editor at Cigar City Poetry Journal and The Adirondack Review. You can visit her website at sarahescue.com. She's also on Instagram and Twitter.