Poetry — February 29, 2016 11:55 — 0 Comments

Barbarisms – Chelsea Dingman

No one wants to take the coffin-born
fetus from the barn. From between

the mare’s legs. They lay in tandem,
their deaths a pact between bodies. Here,

where all love ends in a gasp of cold
air. In a house that knows only

this cruel season. While I wait behind
wood stalls and glass windows to see

what becomes of a body. While I mouth
the wrong names for gods. For another stillborn

child, as my body stayed warm. As I was able
to push her towards dying. As I kissed her

slick forehead, blue eyelids. Perhaps, dream
and memory overlap like atmospheres.

Bio:

Chelsea Dingman continues her MFA and teaches in the University of South Florida graduate program. Her work is forthcoming in Harpur Palate, So to Speak, The Adroit Journal, Grist: A Journal for Writers, The MacGuffin, Quiddity, and The Raleigh Review, among others. Her first book, Thaw, was a semifinalist for the Lexi Rudnitzky First Book Prize for Women and The Philip Levine Poetry Prize (2016).

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What am I?

Bioluminescent eye
That sees by the shine
Of its own light. Lies

Blind me. I am the seventh human sense
And my stepchild,
Consequence;

Scientists can't find me.

Januswise I make us men;
Glamour
Was my image then—

Remind me:

The awful fall up off all fours
From the forest
To the hours…

Tick, Tock: Divine me.

-- Richard Kenney