Conney Williams: Four Poems

the last flame

I
first breath like last flame
she formless like smoke
gristle & guilt are her altar

she the hard timber
sacrifice lives here
she lap my bark underbelly
incinerate me like god

indigo woman so weather-worn
her aftertaste is ginger sunrise
upon a tongue so bona fide
a clever open faced furnace
she glow incandescent 10,000 years

eyes dilate like lebanon summer
her words are truth and flint
when she conjure forest fires
all my prayers combust

she don’t leave me ember
or charred residue
ash abandoned like memory
she consume me spontaneous
like I am a desert bush

II
satisfaction require that I smolder
blaze bluer than a comet’s trail
sacrifice all that lumber
be engulfed by god

*

waking to love in a garden near babylon

had i expected all this
i would be a younger man
full of hard muscle
wise like resistance
my vocabulary would be
laden with back-talk
had i expected you
i would be more confident
you would see the hazel
of my daughter’s eyes in mine
all of you is more than
this rigid bone and reluctance
unimagined song you are
so much more woman
than adam or i expected

*

broken apology

you rather give head
than to say you’re sorry
save your spit
i have forgiveness
for the both of us

*

sometimes it’s not a choice

both eyes full of ambush
soft fang of your appetite
venus fly trap smile
accessible and eager
you use both hands
like any super predator
you want the sum of me
incarcerate length of me
my consent burn conclusive
like wildfire inside your kiln

 

Photo credit: Alexis Rhone Fancher

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