A-Minor

by William Repass

 
dripcrystal tusks & imaginal
studs cusp a pergola-frame,
searing the ivy as it tangles

off––but drawing me
to agonize in facets once
again, the lattice work of tear

drops trapped pathetic
in fallacy. I carve out
piano-keys & figures

delicate of frieze: nymphs
to caryatids, their spindle
limbs transfixed mid

*

-hinge; the fraternizer, couched
in gloves & furs, ascends the garden
we planted out back, exquisitely

arranged, her hands balancing
a saucer of ash spent
in bedsheets of a visceral

complexion; & as her tongue
prunes me of buds, I make
to shelve the pack-ice

impact of her glance––where
sudden diamonds slouch, cut
from her eyelid’s taper: first thaw,

*

& my sculptures melt from the
veins with numb
blue runs; one molt

from singing
sex––now a permafrost
away, & I cannot

take––in order to
break apart––this dish that
holds a crust of cicada-paste

seared black in last-night’s tar;
ivy and ice palmed raw is a balm
only, on wounds like this.

William Repass is a recent graduate from Hendrix College, and I’ve been published in Counterexample Poetics, Marco Polo Art Magazine, the Southern Literary Festival Anthology, and Aonian.