I don't deserve your Riesling
by Sandra Simonds

Two black spots rotate                        counter-clockwise on the Io moth
and likewise I am                                 fifty percent mimicry
fifty percent this                                     oyster watercolorist
adjacent to Woolf’s                              lighthouse where her
double helix                                           hairs grows into
a litmus test                                          that turns acids rouge.

Scrub the sandpit with bleach           and call it “a percentage
of the ocean’s smell,” a self-             replicating wound the consistency
of an antibiotic ointment                     on the jellyfish sting,
a blue base that froths                        in a porcelain vase.

My gaze face splinters                        a light maze as
your cheeks pink wind.                       In Hegel’s inversions all Ones
are blacked out                                    and stuffed with apples
so coax-howl, raise                             semen ships (for hell).

If I were you, I’d tighten                       that Victorian corset grip
to the spine lest                                   you move into the moth’s
nothing. Now it’s backing                  out of said corner,
the sound of air rushing                    into the puncture where the rib
went right through skin.                     You’re identical twin #6
to the imaginary number e,               Great Chain of Being,
the black ground                                 where the lung deflates light.

Other poems by Sandra Simonds in ActionYes #3:
I don't deserve your Riesling
Writing my Bike in Circles around this Poem to Prove that I Persist