Hannah Bonner

Ruin

After Maggie Jaszczak

Pinned to the white wall
the ruched dress pulses
like gills, like an open

throat wetly gasping,
widely tonguing,
a muscle so worn

you could never color it
coral, but ash, animal:
a body that multiplies itself

like spores, like sickness.
Look how the tacks tear
the skin: how delicate the thread

between tenderness and terror,
how black the cords that shape
​​​​​​​the hem like shoreline without moonlight.

Teething for Danger

from Maggie Jaszczak

The blunt edges teeth for danger,
eager to fill the mouth with what presses
against your perspiring nape.

The white paint peels, stiff
as an old valentine that you save
in a bureau drawer, the oak

wood archiving your scents,
your socks, your private wants,
your shames.

Sometimes, in the reddening
morning sunlight, a strand of hair
flashes its tender, tangled flare:

I reach for it –
my needling hunger –
my fistful of frantic air.