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lovehunt

If the desert is naked

            it will worship            

   no one.         If I am the desert, a tarantula

coils between my legs            

            I bring the married man           to my bed

            because he is homeless & knows                                to ignore the vows I make

                    veiled in the dark                          on my hands & knees              his body before me

                                                          posed like a church.

I go too far at night     roaming dry land

                            until the stars appear               & he gazes at my teeth.

    I want him to spill   more on me

            than his jaw                             tusks rising in the heat.

                      When I sleep beside him, my eyes              full of sand,

              I dream my love a wild boar               heavy & fat                             breaths trudging

                                                                  the forest,

                        I wound it with my arrow                              crack its thick

   coat of skin                          I drag it home             I lug it to the table

                          like a bride before him                                                I let the light say eat it    

                          to its desert

            leave its heart

                                                     for no one


 by Charleen McClure

Charleen McClure is a poet currently residing in New York City. She was born to Jamaican parents in London, England and later immigrated to Atlanta, Georgia. She received her BA in English-Literature from Agnes Scott College and is a Fulbright scholar. Her work has also appeared in Kinfolks Quarterly and African Voices.

ISSN 2157-8079
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