POETRY SPOTLIGHT:
MARISSA DAVIS

MARISSA DAVIS READS TWO POEMS

“Parable for the Apocalypse We Built, ii: Doe of the Haruspex”
& “False Aubade After My First Time Taking Plan B”

Parable for the Apocalypse We Built, ii: Doe of the Haruspex

---

i a wound & ascent

i motion made relic

my liver quaking fat as era in your palm

guts a pit where light pounces & withers

you carve my ochre-haired layers

unsecret my elegant vein

with nails a clot of thunder you un-

ravel me rearrange me to

sketch birthblow lovefall emperors’ chance

your bones on my bones your knuckles

a curse even in sameness

you make my body

technology take my body

to use in wasting brother

what else can i give to you you

so unlike the anxious vipers

the wolves that nuzzled

the softness pinking my sisters’ throats

until they slept deeply in the deep of them

even the worms would make me

something greater than myself seeing I

too mothered wilderness & future

now the slit in my flesh gapes to a margin

between worlds age plucked from age

all of me

spilling all of me

screaming organ

halt & stagger every nerve of me

burning with

end

small consequence

of your steadfast misery

your need & questing & want & want & want

ask any question to my gelling blood

the beast of me will spill

one answer:

my ruin

is your

ruin my ruin

is your ruin my pomegranate

heart’s last push is yours

what triumph of the blade

in your sturdy fist

now brother come close

your eyes with me

let us remember once more

how the thrushes’ songs

used to

light our

brief backs

like sunflare

False Aubade After My First Time Taking Plan B

---

Sunday morning & the fog

crackles like

arson, the snow

melts like dalian

time, the icicles

fang, the icicles

fracture the

sunrise crude

as blood, leak

off the awnings

like blood, what

is not blood but

me, my body,

I am begging you,

please: ruby

& shed your indelicate

snakeskin. I know

you ache to beauty

& betray me. You’d

balloon with all your

bitter, like a hurt child

tall-grown beat me

down for every note

of our estrangement. You

wallow & you greed, yowl

to hold is & will be

both hot in the gut

& call that something

between a glory

& a reckoning. It’s true

now that even sex

is scratched it might

be all left that could

yoke us. But I’d rather

whatever battle

we’ve been raging

since you woman-rounded

& I told you no no

keep sweating

for its stalemate. I’d rather

we stay filleted, adjacent,

& I guard my egoed

youth a little

longer. You lay

new bricks, I’ll

blaze the house;

you cook a feast, I’ll slip

the good meat

to the dogs. No

matter what clean bone

of shame each moment

dredges—like how I can’t

get through the package

without asking four different

stores to borrow scissors,

or how quick

this bright box tugs a sea

of strangers’ glares,

a spare moon tideful

in my hand. Or maybe

I’m imagining. Maybe I’m

still scrubbing off

Bible Belt breeding

& its accompanying

mud. I’m the slut

posing a round white

apple in your palm.

I throw a flamesword

in your Eden. I fuck

& heathen. I know

exactly what I’m

losing, & I

give it. Swallow

chalk. Wait

for chance

to river out

of you: hot

as panic, bright

as creation.

---

Marissa Davis is a poet and translator from Paducah, Kentucky, now residing in Brooklyn, New York. Her poetry has appeared or will soon appear in Peach Mag, Sundog Lit, Poem-A-Day, Frontier Poetry, Glass, Nimrod, New South, and Southeast Review, among others. Her translations are published in Ezra and forthcoming in Mid-American Review, RHINO, The Massachusetts Review, and New England Review. Her chapbook, My Name & Other Languages I Am Learning How to Speak (Jai-Alai Books, 2020) was selected by Danez Smith for Cave Canem’s 2019 Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady Prize. Davis is pursuing an MFA in Poetry at New York University.