Bitching under what, the chandelier, or the sturgeon moon. Bitching about what, not getting to witness the fucking eclipse, or not getting to swim. I thought rockfish meant going to where the pines fracture, not outrunning directional sense. 

I thought rockfish meant the fucking body. 

I understood what she meant about love not being something she could follow into the pines. Not enough orange. Not enough twang, and she believed a question, like love, required it, like forgiveness requires legs. 

I know, I know. 

Rockfish, baby. 

When earth near the water decides to give, it blooms, it saturates. Cherry in my drink. Blood on my bathing suit. Tanager.

Summer. Not scarlet.

Learn the difference.

What I crave will ruin the dining table. Bind me where the seam is. How long can you hold that note, baby, with your mouth like that. On a fucking Saturday. Earth near the water, or water near the water, coaxed into it. I get to dive into it. I get to swim.

Magazine tucked into the waist of my shorts. Goth from one angle. Running like that. I want to name it after the birth of the universe. How long did it take for the particles to congeal into the hot mess we fucking love.

Brainless, hold it, tighten until it snaps. The most elegant curse resembles a dance, like what a bra from the seventies does to tits. Brutal, but still, architectural, worth it. Plunging and plunging. Without a little violence, choreographed or not, how will anything worth wanting tumble from my mouth.

The record made an impression. I used it as an excuse to make the bed. Heat streaming into the room. Bend me into it, until it snaps against me, whips me into shape. Heat streaming into the dress I happen to be wearing, and it will deflate, give it a minute, or give me a little wine.

This is the myth, or how shit comes to pass. Rockfish, baby. Hold my wine.

I said put on thigh highs. I said act natural. I will drag my ass down to the dark room at midnight like a bitch with a vision. I could not hear what she thought of the book she was reading, but we met at a show, later, both in velvet. 

Bitter blonde, bitter blue.

*

Bend me toward the sun,

I need to see, 

promise me

harrowing legs, demanding

of me, beatific

without a party, just

a horizon. Pouring and pouring

up until the brim. Fucked up knee

sort of red. 

Crazy to save it, but still, 

I wrote it.

Here she comes, shining in the noise, 

bleeding like an heirloom. 

Here she comes, ignoring the band,

wanting to do something else.

Rose oil in a vial. Chiffon.

Here she comes, thanking the moon, 

uselessly. 

Nothing but magic on a fucking 

Saturday. Here she comes, ruining her dress. 

How chartreuse, I decide. Venus, on her ass. I thought, limitless. I thought, 

cloudless. And it became work.

And it became dull. 

I could use it. Meat, scattered in the grass. Tasteless, 

full of texture. Magnolia, then membrane. Rich without sugar. Pink, 

then more pink, becoming the light. Crumpling, suddenly, quiet, 

like a hunting dog. 

Angel food, everything, in this fucking 

light. Born to rise. Too cool to be anything 

but an organism. Down at the bottom, 

in this spineless 

meantime. Vanilla Coke, 

no pearl to suck on, no cream that rises. 

Fizz before the swallow. Hot like a celebration she seems too cool

to avoid. Vestibule to vestibule. 

Nothing to see but the fucking cosmos. 

Pissing in the field,

nothing romantic about it.

*

Thunder knocked me, made me in the grass, 

listen. To the embarrassing color of the sky in what remains of the day. Call it gloaming, immediately. I want it to burn like I want everyone to put it down. I want to use it because I like it. Folded 

into the video. Tight 

where it counts. Delusional, and yes, unshaved. 

Mimosa. I could suck the glint until it shocks me into 

goddamn. 

That a bruise can bloom into something with soul, I understood, because while magenta came undone, I listened. This time, 

baby. Hammered with something to show for it. Photogenic thigh I have to arrange to let you see. No one does, or asks. I wait, still, 

like a dog. I know how to coax juice from cherries. Practicing in tights. You have to be gentle. Angel, believing, or having faith, or knowing an option with manners. Ideally with flowers. I thought I could wear this dress. I thought I could sing in it. Nothing dangerous enough, 

hot enough, 

to quiet down. You, inside, where light gathers, elegantly, around the karaoke machine. Me, this time, being good. 

I want to say, 

the hell do you intend, conspiring with a kind of divine I thought we edged until, finally, it began,

and I thought we decided, no blood, no hustle, but desire so atonal that we heave it into the yard, go with it 

like the hunting 

dogs we are, forever calibrating our stamina toward the source of light. 

How useless I become in the presence of a threshold, resistant to reading the room, 

conceding to my every vice in a single 

swallow. 

Glory to the weekend, 

deteriorating. Glory to the zodiac, I happen to be waiting, 

cicada inside my mouth. Required, in order to belt it, which will make it less like honey, 

more like shit. No one coming in from the kitchen, or doing anything, to prepare. Is it romantic, 

or is it fake as heat lightning. 

Bend me in that direction. No one else would with razor wire. 

Pin me with a blade 

where it matters, hammer down the same 

silver. Against the earth. 

I like what I like. 

Thong dangling where a wind chime belongs. 

How much, baby, will I owe in the morning, 

for the damage.

Caroline Rayner is a writer from Virginia. She is the author of calorie world (Sad Spell, 2017). Her work can be found in KEITH LLC, jubilat, Peach Mag, Black Warrior Review, Shabby Doll House, and elsewhere. She currently lives in western Massachusetts.