Hemlock Has Taken a Lover

How does she smell in winter, summer?
Moonlight winking behind her many limbs.
Did you court her—mating call strung
in wind’s teeth? Bodies pollinating
in this and each long hour.

***

In Mrs. Mouse’s Class, Just like God, We Create

We spread our fingers, trace
the boundaries of our palms.
We build birds,
turkeys with bellies
full of thanks.
Here, at our pinkies,
springs a feather.
At our ring fingers, another.
Mute, scentless, we leave
off the legs
& heart,
pin it to the wall.

***

After the Wreck

when I called him, my fiancé said do not
come home. I went to Mother’s, slept
in my old bed, returned to him the next day.

Self, younger self, listen. It will not always be
this way. There is a man who will seek your bruised body,
turn to you, though it hurts him to turn.

Though you have both been whipped
back and forth. Prayers hurled on pavement.
This man will say get out get out

it’s not safe and you will stand in the damp
together and wait. Sirens bray and he holds
your cheek with his one good hand.

***

Lauren Davis is the author of the chapbook Each Wild Thing’s Consent, forthcoming from Poetry Wolf Press. She holds an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars, and her work can be found in publications such as Prairie Schooner, Spillway, andLunch Ticket. Davis teaches at The Writers’ Workshoppe in Port Townsend, WA, and she works as an editor at The Tishman Review.