TWINKLE by Jacy Zhang
SPHINX MOTH by Peach Delphine
The speculator calls it land
the gardener calls it dirt
the resident calls it body
the transient calls it form,
Moon rises over palms,
a child calls it butterfly
her grandfather calls it moth
“they’re not the same” exhaling
tendrilled smoke “just as you
can’t shuck your skin”
Bone is the language of moon
scrawled inside of shells
steadily tumbled into sand,
these hands full of the echoes
of absence bouncing off the concave
faces of waves, the curve of conch
swallowing sound
Flesh balances on the edge of dissolution,
wind, wave and wrack, this form is a text of sea
an index of storms,
a manifest of erosion,
beyond the meat, gristle and teeth,
a voice crackling with shell
To be defined as fluid
is not to be the moon
or the flower but the moth
seeking the vine
visiting each flower, learning
each name by taste, a wing
of memory stirring night air
There can be no eye
to witness as flame
burns within the orb, smoking
socket of incineration,
combustion claims all the pages
of our pasts, we unstitch the spine
our leaves are bound to, this thread
of ligament and sinew
that manipulates the digits
of my good hand, you hold
that hand as night curls
around the awkward limbs and knees
of this form, a tidal forest where sleep
is measured in wing beats
and the flowering of scars
dusted with pollen of moonlight
Peach Delphine is a queer poet from Tampa, Florida. Proud Mama of a thoroughly spoiled dog. Former cook, infatuated with the undeveloped Gulf coast. Can be found on Twitter @PeachDelphine.
Jacy Zhang studies English at the University of Maryland and interns at MoreWithUs – Everyday Jobs, a job search website. Her photography has appeared in Green Blotter and Laurel Moon. Besides school, she practices wushu martial arts and worships Jesus with her campus fellowship. You can find her on Twitter at @JacyLZhang