ptomaine dance with Jumbo Bear

there was no other way to do it debouch become invisible :: I left a key under the toad’s frightful jaw was announced with zeal from the megaphone :: today’s lesson :: never begin the conversation by saying I’m hard :: I know what a kiss means sing karaoke at the ossuary you’ve not eaten you’ll be punished kiss me hard :: lurching attractant I wore a wool cap in the rain my hair increased the odds of filling your tag :: a password was given me by a man who died waiting for a limo I should never have left him I was forced to swallow oh little petri dish

Jumbo Bear inside the bob

free range 8 burners 2 ovens a variety of entry points :: you wanted his head both eyes X X Wundertone grease worked into fur :: listen the child king in the ground :: I rolled you like biscuits across Swan Front ear pressed to snow listen god damn you his slow heart under :: I was ashamed :: fire sprang from my heels hair threaded in the vireo’s nest I tore your lottery tag :: where did you go to spot and stalk boil my bite hide a spoon a stiff bristled brush a small knife :: how transcendent and loose I became later by the fire

A corn-fed beefswelling tempts Jumbo Bear

I wrote my name more than fifteen times which meant at least one person cropped up like fur in a plate of buttered beets :: I wanted to shave it nothing more than a device to get you into my mouth :: write amen at the end of your sentence please do not pronounce sentence sennence :: I patched the hole in my embouchure moist came through my warm machine :: at it again in the sink red carbolic Lifebuoy :: seriously if a woman is going to wash this often she should have her own scalpel

Jumbo Bear divines peril in a bucket of goat entrails

I welcomed the dryness your absence brought :: removed a Montana sized splinter from my squat bulk :: an owl flew past holding the limp body of a snowshoe hare :: your wife dangled polyps in her cup and I was on my belly again in the bed with the eyelet sheets :: there is dread in telling these stories little maps no control skin crashing against oozey clamor :: I wanted you to rise in the owl’s talons I wanted to hurt you :: the animal takes the animal knows how to secure food :: do you see now :: I could not fit any more in :: there is an arm that curls there is a spine but there is no mouth :: this is what you forgot in your hurry :: there is no mouth 

Rebecca Loudon is the author of Tarantella (Ravenna Press), Radish King (Ravenna Press), and Navigate, Amelia Earhart’s Letters Home (No Tell Books). Cadaver Dogs, her third collection of poetry, is forthcoming from No Tell Books. Rebecca lives in Seattle, where she is a professional musician and teaches violin to children.