Arsenic Lobster poetry journal
Issue Twenty
Summer 2009
| Home | Current Issue | Contributors | Review | Order | Archive | Submission | About Us | Contact Us |
 
Two
Rachel Mallino

This is what I have given you:
two crippled glands tucked into your throat.

Do they represent the times I considered
unfolding you from my womb?

They swell, thirsty like when I kept my breasts
to myself. My hand pressed beneath your bangs

cannot convince you that your sore swallow
is not my own secret ideology of twos.

I've never complained about your blue eyes --
globes as round as my mother's knucklebones.

Mine are brown. I hold you, regardless.

About Rachel Mallino

| Home | Current Issue | Contributors | Review | Order | Archive | Submission | About Us | Contact Us |