HEATHER HUGHES
A Symbol Pronounced Star
I mean the business of your body and my body, our sacks
of sugared muscle, and all the implosions between.
There are five kingdoms of mirror. You lullaby insomnia
with gulag documentaries. Even your you means me.
I want to leave
my scrubbed nerves on the drying rack in your kitchen.
I want to hang
my fissure-entranced oracle beside your pyramid scene. Plush
and radiant, we favor jewel tones and grays. We crossed
out imprecisions. Oh, before. Yes, before.
Even my we means me. Now I mean to simplify.
There are five kingdoms of mirror. Lower the dropcloths, let's, please.
heather hughes hangs her heart in her native Miami and her current town of Somerville. Her poems recently appear in Barrow Street, decomP, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, and Painted Bride Quarterly, among others. She is a writer for Mass Poetry online and an associate editor for Scoundrel Time. heather earns her keep in academic publishing and can often be found creating letterpress poetry broadsides and postcards. (birdmaddgirl.com.)