A shrouded beast, A tangled dark beneath
I. Wordless encounter with a monster
Thee, ancient nameless beast
Confront me roaring, perfectly diseased
By color speck and stroke,
Panicked ablaze. To send my whole,
rendered-liquid self into gasp; Here am I:
facing with my little face
A span longer than life. Your vandalized
identity, messy like the dark truth, Oh
It rumbles my body’s boiling brine. I’ll only resign to
You, your vacuum-suck on my bones, when
For me air solidifies in my throat
And flecks stick in bright mockery
Like chunks and chunks of bone
Weighing down with hard-tack
And black, my stuttered lung.
My vision my words drown, swallowing
Molasses until death doesn’t come.
And you’re hunched cradling
My tangled organ strands charred to black
In your hands like
A small dead thing, a story lost to
A chasm, a broken wing on the back,
A curse of repetition
A waterwheel churning black.
Ana Celeste Poetry 