by Robert Carr

Tangled in blankets, you no longer rest, are no longer
here—corpse, without itch or pinched nerve.
A broken wing hand, featherless, hangs slack from
the mattress edge. I prepare for adoration,
pull down our porcelain basin, soak goat soap in body-
warm water, squeeze a sea sponge the shape of a lung.

I pull back the Navajo pattern, stroke wooly hairs,
tuck graying sheets to the side, survey your still-
holding flesh, its length, toes snowcapped and cragged.

Eagles circle a landscape of male, no carrion crow
perched atop branching ribs. I clean your chill legs,
hope for pink blooms, a sunrise to petal, stormed
hair at your groins. Soaked shallows, veined rivers
left dry, creped thigh, the pool of a navel, cattail
marsh in a pit of raised arms where I dare to sip.

The porcelain basin clouds with false promises—
who to go first, who to follow. Kneeling at the foot
of our bed, I look beyond hanging fruit to the sink
of a belly, those mountain range ribs, distant caves.

Robert Carr is the author of Amaranth, published by Indolent Books, and two full-length collections published by 3: A Taos Press – The Unbuttoned Eye and The Heavy of Human Clouds. His poetry appears in many journals and magazines including the Greensboro Review, the Massachusetts Review and Shenandoah. Forthcoming collections include Phallus Sprouting Leaves, winner of the 2024 Rane Arroyo Chapbook Series, Seven Kitchens Press; and Blue Memento, from Lily Poetry Review Books. Additional information can be found at robertcarr.org You can find him on Facebook @robert.carr.1238 and Instagram @robertcarrpoetry.