Idolatry and Other Fields I Run Towards
I once dreamed for animal
bones, the sharpness of canine
teeth, and when the spring comes
I tell myself I will no longer
beg for dreams of horses,
olive trees, or the apple
of your throat on my tongue.
I can dispel the need to indulge
on heated musk, blue veins,
and that night after the party
how someone else waited
in the other room for me,
and us on the porch,
the sticky want before screen door,
if I had let us have it, that moment,
I wouldn’t be running through bluebonnet
salivating wildly for the chance
to have you sit me on your counter top in green light,
cicada song, long moon, whisper
there is nothing about you
that I want to be gentle.
I know what I do isn’t right.
And although there has been nothing,
my present lover, pure as wheat fields,
I’m sorry, simple is something I never
understood. I need a bleeding gum
as I eat. Look, here’s a wasp
giving itself to the fig.
I know what happens inside
and I still circle around the flesh
sink my teeth and pull.
Elaina Edwards is a poet from the Texas Hill Country. She received her MFA from Texas State University. You can read her in Phoebe, Hood of Bone Review, Variant Lit., and others. When she’s not writing, she’s jumping into every swimming hole possible.