14 August 2008 | Vol. 8, No. 2
August
Birmingham, Alabama
Forces sky down
like a French press
over the boil. Constant cloud
covers thunder—lightning
but no rain—a tease without
the reprieve of a drop—
lonely as the kiss you want
to, but don't need. Inside
is no better: a sluggish throb and sour:
sprout bread, green oranges, cockroaches.
Our newly wound moon clock
gives up. Lamps hum off.
Books open themselves like any woman in a skirt
who spreads her legs to the fan when no one's looking.
But the only fast thing in our bedroom
is the ceiling—peels like catharsis
could cool, and talk might solve
these sheets of Mammoth wool.
We exhale, try and will not
touch each other. The running space
between our bodies is that water.
About the author:
Lauren Goodwin Slaughter is Assistant Professor of English at The University of Alabama at Birmingham and Fiction Editor for the online journal, DIAGRAM. Her poems have recently appeared in Salt Hill, Crab Orchard Review, Blue Mesa Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, Juked, 5_trope, and also on Verse Daily.
For further reading:
See the complete list of work by Lauren Goodwin Slaughter at 42opus. Browse the contents of 42opus Vol. 8, No. 2, where "August" ran on August 14, 2008. List other work with these same labels: poetry.
