MiPo Best of the Poetry Board 2003

Rae Pater

Hungry Mouth

I am not eye, nose, lip
breast
but a hungry magenta mouth
three days old
with a whore’s vocabulary

crawling naked over thin sheets
looking for fulfillment
tangled in a braid
of skin and sin
seeking, seeking

a loaded gun
to fill me in
dark red/mutant mouth
stalks the fierce hold
of a tiger’s grip
to bind me sweet and thick
in coiled stripes
and hot fur
to press his raspberry mouth to mine
and singe me black.

Third Edition ~Editors: Mia, T. Birch, PJ Nights and Kathryn Koromilas ~