Welcome to the Reliquary
To be remembered in history, you must be either a virgin or a nuisance.
I don’t make the rules nor do I abide by them. A balance
struck by my disposition. Malformed so, an inside out man.
Therefore, it is best that I do everything backwards; a crab-
walk into the bed. When I perform cowgirl, I prefer to gaze
at toes over head. My favorite position is the one where my
body is not an opportunity, not a bloom nor a peach, as I am
tired of reading poetry where pricks so desire to ravish what
cannot speak, to cock a river or tree so he can call it creating.
And too, my flesh is guilty; I have flung my desire at stony
entities: God, idols, men who did not flinch as they touched me
in my sleep. You all must have really loved me–oh but, alas!
You passed me over for a sainthood and all those minor glories,
so to be recalled by taste or eye, only one path was laid out
before me. In the vain of Margery, yes, I had to be the spectacle
unrivaled, unmatched in breath and nuisance, oh yes, to be
remembered I chose to be the annoyance. Surely by now, there
must be a better word for it? Oh yes, amid our supposedly
failing language (another lie), there must be for all flesh a fitting
dress. Utterance is begat by need, I begat by Angie & Gary;
nobody asked for my history and if they will, that is not up to me.
And it fractures me, truthfully, lack on account of ransack &
nonchalance; I know men felt passionate, once. I know you felt
passion once. Would you like to see what happens to a body
overrun? Step up to the box. Take note of the pose. Dear novice,
your lips will remain incorruptible as long as you let them go.
The Apple of My Armpit
after John Keats and the Austrian custom
My dear slice, offspring of the ribboning knife, will fit like a thumb in this pit of wiry copper hairs. A flushed crescent that upon sweat feasts, hibernates till it can be reborn as a talisman, as a fat offering between our four searching hands. When asked to dance, I tumble to your touch ungentle, become the blushing ram who bleats for the end of skin, for the end of music—but instead, I dance to keep our fruit fed. At the very heart of this swarm, it is so clear what I crave: to kill bodice and give sacrament. Farewell, dripping blood moon. I want a room drenched in silence so that I may hold it towards you.
Kale Hensley is a poet and visual artist from West Virginia. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Booth, Evergreen Review, Gulf Coast, and Sonora Review. Find more of her writing and peculiars at kalehens.com.