Poem

Tash by Brian Dahlen; for more information, visit http://crazywulf.deviantart.com/
My Animal
after Ann Hamilton, the common SENSE
by Sarah Kathryn Moore
My animal with variegated furs
Can blush
Rears up and likes its hands
The weight of my animal’s claw gives rise
to protective feelings similar
to the feelings for the brother sleeping
with a cherry pit in his cheek and not choking
Hhhhhh the mouth breathes
Size and history was no object
when I found my animal
Someone had torn or eaten
a hole in my animal’s leathery wing
My animal is with me in the room but it
is blind to the cadaver
face covered by strips of cloth
feet covered in fuzzy socks
shreds of skin fat and muscle matter littering the table
My animal worries me like a cat
worries a bird
It puts its limbs around me how a man
holding a confused resigned fawn
We rip through blackberry bushes
like cobwebs on our common ground
Permeable to affect
The magnitude of sensation
Touching feeling
Rush of relief
Belly to belly
Self to self
Language only eternally
absorbs and empties content
Like a dumb saltwater sponge
But terror causes the body to tremble
A pleasurable state of mind
Unwrapping the gauze
Our body haunts space
And although my animal causes many noises
I will confine myself
To this slight sound
About Sarah Kathryn Moore
Sarah Kathryn Moore holds an MFA and a PhD from the University of Washington; her poems have appeared most recently in Poetry Northwest, Pacifica Literary Review, Cutbank, Filter, and The Journal. Sarah Kate teaches literature and composition at the University of Washington and North Seattle College.
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