T.A. Noonan

Opticks // Covergirl

In a very dark Chamber, Newton records a round Hole,

the Shut of a Window, a stick in the prism’s surface.

This is where to keep the mouth. Inside, behind teeth.

No voices of blackwood, of Africa, of left-handed

Fender or clarinet. Nothing escapes. But more than mouths,

he worries about patellae. They float, you see;

bones shouldn’t float. Is not Light a Body to be kept

in perspective? It is, after all, a house of order —

architecture in Holga filters, in bilateral, radial,

helical symmetries. Everyone is a shut-in here.

I am not welcome with my repetitions. My opaque

lack. Only white metalline Bodies need apply. He sees

through my locked jaw. That tendon connecting

tongue to cleft to cervical spine. Somewhere,

a Polaroid shudders at the thought of latex.

T.A. Noonan is the author of The Bone Folders (Sundress Publications), Petticoat Government (Gold Wake Press), Darjeeling (Ahadada Books), and Balm (Flaming Giblet Press). Her work has appeared in Ninth Letter, Verse Daily, Phoebe, RHINO, specs, Harpur Palate, Superstition Review, and many others. Currently, she lives on Florida's Treasure Coast with her husband.