Let the planets fly
around a sunlight candle
in a solar wind

                Kelly McManus

Scents of rot are sweet
at first,
syrup-thick and
magnolia-cloying.
They linger, soft
as slime, to stain in
gentle streaks
the sunken fat of this
wrung body.
Just east of Eden
even the dirt smells of
sugar. The flies come
to pick at it. To pick at
my bones. To eat of dust.
There is too little
moisture for maggots--
Still, they try
the awful reproductive
consumption, the
drive that kept me
at these gates
kills them too, so my
body and fly
bodies and the
bodies of other
lost
are mummified
before the lovely mirage.

The doors to this
temple
beg reverence,
yawning wide
that I might
bow my head
sip
from silken chalice
of clavicle and skin.

I’ll come in
veil of curls,
feather-ringlets draped
to cover prayers
of tongue and teeth,
hot against the
the taste of
center,
this garden’s
hidden seed.

Let me kneel
before the altar,
press offerings
of dampened
silk on curves
thick with myrrh,
sugar-slick and
soft as
bruised persimmon.

Eden’s gates
are opening,
tomato-red and overripe
to spill, in runnels,
a warm communion—
fruit
of my flesh
of yours.

is a broken rib—
the same sharp pain,
wooden-lung breathing.
I stand alone in an
ocean of bodies,
mouthless half-faces,
gaping holes beneath
strips of cloth.
Your assumptions
dissolve me only
gradually—
an un-bronchial
consumption,
though still,
I am left gasping.

Wile-some,
sick-sweet,
glass eyes and
fairy eye-teeth
peep from a
fictitious smile.

Floral scent,
lemon-twist,
silk grips and
tendrils quick
accompany your
enchanting grin.

Cast it away
fey creature, lest
it haze neural maze
and I slip-stumble
love-tumble
flip-furl-fumble
into your mystic-trick
will-o-wisp gaze.

This room is
cacophonous
a crowd in halves,
ceaseless dichotomy,
roaring in
desperate appeal.
Vilipend the words
of the other side
as they aren’t human
but voices shouting
obscenities incorrectly.
Truth, here,
is a myth
sold for millions,
and those of us who wish to
listen
drown in the
tide of screams.