KIM COULL

the swallowing beast

 

1.

when you go
after you have gone
there is a swallowing beast

when you go
i fail
in small increments
the incredible shrinking woman
i fade
behind a newly formed hymen
my cave blackens
a fissure closes

when you come back
after you have come
i hear you hammering
calling my name
sometimes this hymen is
unbreakable
my persistent caul

2.

when you go
after you have gone
something is dislocated;
the unnamed thing
lurches toward me
the swallowing beast
set loose from the darkness
smelling
what i don’t know
inside my fear
i am a morsel on his web
dew touched & shivering
into mourning

3.

after you go
after you have gone
vast landscapes
cull me
like an intruder
so vast
it is a swallowing

your voice brings me to its gate
your lick and wet
conjures the latch
your step towards me
springs it open

i fall through it
like an escapee
all the wild and empty boars
tusked and snorting
at my heels

4.

after you go
after you have gone
my thoughts drip
until i am a drowning
night falls so gently
and so long
i cannot grasp it,
it nestles into me
a burrowing beast
without consent

intruder

5.

the base load in the dusk
is falling           like Lucifer