April Salzano

I WAS AWARE THAT YOUR HEAD

slips, as in
falls. That it could
crack, as in
split wide open and scatter like
the shards of a statuette
not made of rock
when hurled at a wall without holes
to rescue/cushion.
That it retreated, as in
retracted regurgitated
words that held
no meaning in the first
place. That it had no sense
of direction, as in
truth from lie,
lost from home,
glass from stone.

MY LOVERS’ GRAVES

They have pennies on their eyes, those
that I did not gouge out with the sticks
of my fingers, the bones of my hands.
They are all buried beyond the sixth foot,
too deep to be exhumed, past
the clay, closer to the water table
where I swore I struck a fossil or gold.
I keep them in my back yard, one beside
the next, remember the way each lay
separate claim to my body with their pink
tongues and swinging cocks, the blue
of their irises cracking me open
like a ribcage, then leaving me for dead.

__________________________

April Salzano teaches college writing in Pennsylvania where she lives with her husband and two sons. Her work has appeared in Poetry Salzburg, Convergence, Ascent Aspirations, The Camel Saloon, Blue Stem, and is forthcoming in Rattle and other online and print journals. She serves as co-editor at Kind of a Hurricane Press.