Untitled
Lauren Plitkins
Love,
bleached bones in the divination cup
are not the needled pines whispering black portent.
Rather, the ribs are hungry and the jointed patella, lonely
and the sun pours out white milk for everyone. Love,
that great performance of aquatic inhalation
and exhalation is called a constant. You see, the sea
also provides. She nests the cormorant among quilts of scales
so he may always dream of fish. I wave my hands above Death
Valley and two smiling rivers split from stone. Woman does not need god,
Love. Watch me swallow moon from Silver Lake and not die but multiply
my harvest. And when we die, we will live
underground where things cease to wear names, our bones
scattered in the shallow bellies of sunny rivers.
LAUREN PLITKINS is a writer and teacher from Seattle, WA. She received a BA in English and Creative Writing in 2010 and is currently an MFA candidate at Pacific Lutheran University. She writes nonfiction and poetry. Lauren’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in So to Speak, Blue Lyra Review, Meat for Tea, WRIST magazine, Blast Furnace, and Post Defiance.