JUKE
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JOINT
so daylight
is not monogamous
and they know this detail
and the frill of his overcoat
and her frail suede arms
they are still waiting for the lamplight
to resolve itself
she is still in the quiet pouncing
and fanning her eyes
he is still extracting the theater of it
still reciting flesh of my flesh
clouds cackle overhead
at the speed of a man swimming
the sky behind them orange
and very small
she shows him the bottom of the cup
their faces like flat gold coins
do not flicker or shape
he says yes it is quite empty
his point of entry
last night silk-strings of corn
pulled off, white and delicate
like fingers, strips of
moon.
in blank light she wrote:
no screaming,
my dear one, my strong
pulse. slipped through the door
to survey the land. off of a ship,
bloody with waves. she carried
a sack to me
with something like violets
but less purple. i couldn’t
differentiate. suppose
the whole world was a flock
not of sheep, but geese.
crawling upriver,
laying eggs. i see her
and i know the way
her arms will cup themselves,
the way she will dismount a bike.
in the prism
of the outdoors
where we stand, not knowing
the type of brick, what comes
of kernels, the wool.
Mackenzie Kozak holds a BA from Wake Forest University and an MFA from UNC-Greensboro. She lives in Asheville, NC where she admires mountains and grocery stores. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Boston Review, Denver Quarterly, jubilat, Sixth Finch, Thrush Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. Find her online at mackenziekozak.com