One Ragged Breath

By Lamisse

tell me about limbs extending like passion vine

about a longing languishing in the tendrils of fingers

give me scarlet in flower; marines in sea - whisper

of misshapen worlds better than this one, of utopias

imperfected; give me a refusal to grasp for supremacy.

Press into my hand’s recipes

made of ingenuity’s hard blue stare.

Bury me with sand flung from clown toes,

Water my grave with laughter.

Tell this ragged death to wait; tell them we need

to catch a breath.