by Michael Boccardo

Only if God is a box
he’d fill with wind. If he
is the box. If God is
full. Only if he wears
me like a lover lost
to trauma, my throat
full of buttons. Ask me
again about his eyes,
those forests lush & cruel
& how with owls he’ll
crowd my leafless
branches. Or how we’ll
dust ourselves drunk
under fists of aster, then lick
clean the constellations
that spill at the small
of our back. At night,
he’ll dream in leather,
I in myth. My sudden
storm. My arched
cathedral. Our tongues
unburdened of every
oath like the slow
scratch of crows
clotting the sky. He’d
crown me his little
hemlock, his favorite
foxglove. His kiss
would say become,
say quicksilver &
eclipse. Together
we’d turn the rivers
crude, the stones
fanged. Behind us
chaos would follow,
a wolf who’s grinned
since childhood.

Michael Boccardo’s poems have appeared in various journals including Kestrel, storySouth, The Inflectionist Review, Screen Door Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Mid-American Review, Iron Horse, The Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, Comstock Review, Nimrod, RHINO, and Best New Poets, as well as the anthologies The Power of the Feminine I: Vol II and Poetry Goes to the Movies. He’s been a finalist for The Pushcart Prize and a finalist for the James Wright Poetry Award. He resides in High Point, NC, with two rambunctious tuxedo cats. Additional work can be found at michaelboccardo.com