Cassandra J. Bruner
The Tagging of Swanplume Boy
Blindfolded I know the fallow mile
yawning ahead
its nocturnes audible beneath the iambs
of the truck’s engine Know
our endpoint: an empty
stable electrodes pressed
to breasts & inner thighs & a knob
turned
toward the amnesia
of desire Unknowing of
body
The dirt barnacled to my back whispers
sleep & my head lolls
into a field I once slept in its pale
shoots of pear trees How they rose & made
an orchard of my flat
body Babe
I hear you say
we shouldn’t need flight Still before
they band weights through our scapulae
I beg you
suspend me till my arms chandelier from atop
a gutted silo Beg you
make me
wind’s puppeteer & marionette
Before our hunters pry us
apart I untrace
the constellation of birthmarks spelling
Deus Vult along your spine while
you tongue black tourmaline
below
my cheekbones my nape—
each space where fragility
is a sharpness promising it will only cut
outward