Jake Skeets

Moth Horse

his headlight

                        finds a horse

laked

legs bear the eyes 

                        snow snakes roadway  

cicadas the throat

(he kisses his throat

lips tremor light

over collar pocket)      on the edgeway

a moth horse

swallows eyes

sleet-laked

(his mouth snowflaked

by another man wound around his throat—

he sunsets his eyes

on all fours in the lowlight

like he does for me before I horse

a floodway

through him)    knotweeds hold sway

winter-slaked

the horse

throat

        swallows our flashlight

a broken bloom for eyes

(he trades an eye

away

for) the moonlight

laked

through scrub oak       night ahorse

shawls the dead horse

we have fence posts for eyes

driving through the throat

morningway

waiting for tangled light

horse hair dews the throat

we drive through early light    (another eye

laked)  in the distance chamisa bushes sway

Tó

A mother with humming pulse, 

uranium holy, conjures the first atom.

Then pelvis, backbone, smoke—a leg’s language.

The beginning, a girl—erosion slather of earth

and vein. Bitter tides of water saint the church

in her throat. Enough to callus her skin—her body bent

into locust, into tower. She mountains a mountain’s physics.  

The A’s stretch opens a tongue bleed—

more water. Its time gusts through the pulpit

woven with voice box. Its light wombs geometry.

A mother steps into quiet currents and hears

the first word flung from an open hand.  

Her mouth pedals open around the sound—

one cicada click underneath the water.

Emilia Phillips