Words sometimes
settle between thighs.
Eye up—all night
think how I don’t your
shoulder brush, cough
don’t, you away, leg.
I don’t acknowledge your
mouth when you’re talk
-ing, how can you? Talking
such silence
between an affect.
Sounding pangs liquid
off every windshield
tears the sky open.
Tears, tears. Tears
flesh like zipper
like soft adjutant
in a word-swept womb.
You reach for a bottle
and I want
to stay
your hand with mine.
Photo Credit: samcaplat Flickr via Compfight cc
Kari A Flickinger
Kari A. Flickinger's poetry has been published in or is forthcoming from Written Here: The Community of Writers Poetry Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, Burning House Press, Door Is A Jar, Isacoustic, Ghost City Review, Eunoia Review, and Riddled with Arrows, among others. She is an alumna of UC Berkeley. When she is not writing, she can be found playing guitar and singing to her unreasonably large Highlander cat, as well as obsessively over-analyzing the details of neighboring trees.