Barbican Young Poets 2019-20

                    After ossein is wrung out, bled

      by hand from hand, ulna, radius

up to rib, then sternum—sharpness

      of breath, barbed until ash. I feel a wreck

                   chink after watershed, dribbling eyes

     after breastbone punches, an opening of

the inner thigh, no time to fracture, pieces of

     my heart somewhere, she says

                   pulp sensation, willow pattern, pearl

     says, I’m just a wreck, ground down

at high heat, fading into your sun

     despairing, or flaring into girl

                   fiction, I’m ah—girl, I’m ah

     dig on you, girl, painted land, come, fly me

sunrise, capillary sunset, flower drum

     song bursting in a double take, I’m ah

                   lap it up like honey, in the chapel of

     our despair, thick-skinned like snow

clouds on air. Our clouds pulp, blossom, or

     loom red, then crimson, cobalt, chartreuse. I’m a

                   chanteuse, no, chanteur, by the skin of

     my teeth aren’t teeth, by the ache of

but pearl—“Oh, baby, just you shut your

     mouth”—by bruised mouth or

                   willow tree blossoming in

     my blood, my boyish gait, delicate wild

laughter loud as thunder. I once was a child

     she says, “Ssh.” No, by the skin

                   off my knees, I couldn’t escape

     unscathed, with this feeling

     I’m a ruin (everything

     you are