A-Minor

by Teneice Durrant Delgado
 

Warning

           A shark sings and I count his teeth
as promises, as seconds on a clock-
everything here is sleep, nothing
                               over there is awake-
but you cradle me, fingers
like razors and gates. We stripe like tigers
and call it prayer,
call it waiting even though
we greet each other with stop watch
eyes. The sunrise’s long, gold
                     arms are the shadows
we try to lose,
are my flags of surrender, my fangs
as I swallow the world, all your
messengers drowning.

Aubade

I’ve woken with wings again
but this time I remember your warning:
the ceiling is closer in the morning. I hear

the clawing of stray cats or angels
on the roof, all eager to get in, to steal
my revelations, again-

They are too late, he’s borrowed them
line by line to share with a setting
moon. Another warning you etched for me: evil

is not the man, or his attention, but
the obsession of trying to divine: rapture
or meteor? Either will ruin you for the life

you try to return to. There’s no comfort
in rebuilding this old home, or in making
wishes on falling brimstone, the only
shooting stars we can afford.

Teneice Durrant Delgado is a co-founder and poetry editor for Blood Lotus: an online literary journal, and the series editor for Winged City Chapbooks. Her most recent chapbook, Burden of Solace, was just released from Cervena Barva Press.