sara matson: 3 Poems
<paper>
i printed my lover’s eyebrows
on paper inserts that accompany
things that keep other things
from dying
(w/science)
i wrapped lobes
(ear + frontal)
like uncreased nikes
w/purpose + clarity
fractured cellular level mutation
behaving like a coated wire
(narrative beheading)
doe eye stuffed
w/ pills a thick habit
curled around my orbital bone
reflecting surface skim
(that foam in the corners of the mouth)
earning the respectful complicity of my
parchment hued cheek
what adaptation is my favorite?
pixilated staining of ancillary characters ensues
(finely milled // small batch)
grease settled into the threads
pendant beneath lower lid
honey dew licked an invisible reservoir
// a peculiar emotional reaction
quaked knee mouth twitch
adults meant trusted expensive
kitchen tile edging +
heated marble floors
snake bite lamp i ease you off
venom hazy in the sunshine glow
wrapped in my lover’s eyebrow
paper crinkling beneath
an embossed crescent manifest
star to the charts
guiding my delivery
<fireplace>
dad blows his nose
tips the gate to our lashes
tossing damp wads into
plyboard flames
garfield slipper socks
pulled high to cover errant
prickled shame disguised as
scabby soft cacti +
it starts how it always does
peering over frames
lips to lens
eager teeshirt smears
blinking over breath
marbles hung by wax
surfing w/ perverse bodied
extradimensional board
comb my baby hairs
between ur fingernails
pluckscoop out the
follicle its toothy
chemistry weighted at the root
broad centimeter collapsed shoulders
in the nite (puff sleeved sister)
i am a beaded nightshirt in basement light
hand cupped to guard my soft spot from
the apex of vintage brick
pads kissed wire intersections
mocking like siblings
diamond reinforcement
splintering into blushed cheeks
we hold hands staring into
the five tongues snapping
inside the roar
<solitary burden>
the nite of my
immm possible task i did
my makeup in
snuff film lighting told
voluptuous secrets to the spliced clone
of my great great grandmother
into the fluorescent pool with you, granny
mascara wands bashed brains
to sticky spots on damp vinyl floor my
shining forehead distracts from left lid
sleeping on the camera timer
clawing a lace flesh gown
i insisted
a tweed crotch suit was
my solitary burden like the warmth
of broken hands wrapped
around a limp body
you’re too sen-si-tive
let them suffer for a while
just a bit but
let them suffer
my sadness is a flea
market tattoo
hiding under a warm wash
cloth soaked to the fiber
every reflection is a warning corner
of the eye extraction
betrayal exerted to the fog
+ no where further
sara matson’s poems can be found in The Journal Petra, DATABLEED, Theta Wave, Dying Dahlia Review, Vagabond City Poetry, Déraciné Magazine, Mannequin Haus, Soft Cartel, Dream Pop Press, and elsewhere. Her pamphlet, Forgotten: Women in Science is available from Damaged Goods Press. Another New Calligraphy previously published her electric grandma. sara lives in Chicago with her rad husband + cats, and tweets as @skeletorwrites.