fissures of the backlit, neon sky
Bite-size feast:
nipple, circle bruise, a
scar, temple pit, round
tip, navel, folds and
fault, flat verbs, square
remarks. What is
mind and
why?
In the crook
of moon's elbow a line
cast in a still-
sleeping sea. Metal
hooked through a scaly
cheek, a mother reels
herself into to a purple
spool.
How do I abandon this?
What is the color of rust?
shoveling smoke
Laur used to wrinkle
his nose at milkweed cake
sock monkeys the tip
jar we slinked below
the counter it
fit him better than
his clothes, he wept
taxation wide
ruled over slack
jawed cents
the economy of bolts
and screws magnetic
as VHS tape. Skin
flinted we kept
it waded pinched
up as curling
pin sails.
He sipped soup
brothless the boatneck
with pinstripe
suds arrowed in the
drawer. Bowtied bottle
necks corrupted
each other bricks
expressed nothing but
red sanddollars
shifted in felt tip
pain. Tiger
lilies creased
the collar a curtain
heather-gray. Wide
spread cheek on
sawtooth bone his
tackle box a chain
link chest we
chalked it up
to the checkerboard.
Fingers caged
in tinker-size tuxes
embalmed metal callus
camo slit
cartons seaweed
spine chemistry
canned in a lab
iced ballet
slippers we
wore polka
dot sashes
skating the length
of espresso-powdered
noses torn
stocking playground
straw stripes
bunsen burnt
sputtering halt
stained the
skeleton of his
pity party a salmon
spy in a skinless
body suit.
Mrs. Palmer’s surf
wax wicker
knotted ticket
in his soles
thicker nuns
plywood dimpled
on the dock
covered your
socks pliers peeled
thready protein
cookies from his pink
gums fickle lidded
elevens lined up
to tango little brown
bear won’t you race
us to the wrinkle
line?
pavement potatoes
I arrived in New York
for the first time two
weeks ago with coats
and cases spilling
from my arms I watched
a man with a burlap briefcase
dart across the street
right in front of a taxi
papers fluttering out
behind him like confetti
celebrating skirting tire-
treads and killer-
klaxons but
my knees buckled
and my cases crashed
to the concrete sprawling
open like how she’d left me
naked on the bed
I realized that he
hadn’t been mashed
so I went into the “convenient
corner” to retrieve my
relief and rewrap
my underwear when
a man with black
boots and a curtain-
corset and watertight
tights glared at me
sprawled on the self-stick
linoleum I sank further
mad
for his inky
eyes and that
beat-up bodice of his
coat that dragged
in the drains
like batman’s cloak
only cooler
and more cryptic
so I repacked
renounced pink
and panties
and in the length
of only two
blocks traded my purses
for black satchels carved
jagged lines into the
corners of my eyes
punctured my
ears twenty-one times
shamelessly spilled ink
on my arms danced
bootless in diners and ate
potato soup in
the doctor’s
boutique
till I got sick
the taxis have kept
brawling and the businessmen
have kept boasting
but today a man
in a burlap suit darted
across the street
in front of a blue
taxi and I ran
to race them
cloak catching
in the fumes
Savannah Ford is an MFA candidate at Columbia University studying creative writing and literary translation. In her work, she explores themes of queerness and social conventions, walking a tightrope between the public and private spaces of the mind. Her poems have been published in various print and online publications, including the Academy of American Poets (2025), Aphros Literary Magazine (2024, 2025), and Mille Fontaines Literary Magazine (2024).