Dot Devota

Blackwriting
The lemon blanket thrown, each day
abducted into stale citrus our lips puckered
I commissioned a throne and sat facing demented fruit


We were first seen protrusions wearing silk socks
flatulence from bathers to a healing spring
I swallowed the mother for better or worse handwriting
liquid skin stretching to assign the instrument
world strapped with explosives I throw a trenchcoat over its back
walk it to the next available teller
his clubfoot crossing the easel
painting with mop water fucking itself spreading
on toast melted butter from the grossest animal that still gives milk


Days have horizon strapped to my wrist
I tap the clock face. No seeds!
whoever listens to me wants to keep their life
I chop off my fingers and dealing them out see who has the shortest straw
then I say some stuff in Italian
it all seems like an opera people begin to behave decently


Stars in the viaduct
I know at night I’ll have to go around with a shovel
burying reflections so there’s no evidence of conspiracy
no telling the animal suffers of what but it dies from
a good carrot to dangle



Blackwriting
Embellish the practice a deaf wing
I read from a book the color dies my bath
sink into coal tumbling from the mine
a new life the gaping sentence the wood it takes
a sliver scalps me in the kitchen above pots of boiling water
what was my dinner laid bare my mind in hunger


The fork and knife work out of hate for each other true love of oneself
a black and white drawing in the middle of a poem
I ate a wagging lion’s tail
divorced my eyes from swinging lights
skipping them across love’s sol spectra like stones on a pond one drowns in
each eyelash a second too far into the future
above me in a field the breath of petit angels
uninvited guests trample the daffodils

Dot Devota's poems have appeared recently in Recent poems have appeared in Tarpaulin Sky, Octopus, Denver Quarterly, The Offending Adam, Omnidawn and Action Yes.