the destroyer > text > Cori A. Winrock
TWO POEMS
Like victoriana-mansions in emptying fields : like this room is a body left to light
its way through a house : left to rot : the wallpaper developing us
as stop-motion : as clattering through space : not stars so much as dark-
stockings-dark : a velvet-stuffed mouth. Or how to drape our lack
: reflection. Above the mirror she & I are not : for disappearing. Above the mirror :
the corners of an unzipped dress : swallowed by the swallowed
overlap of light : the shutter biting down on its own open hand : a moment gloved
on film : unto heirloom. The sound of a heavy dress dragging :
particular. So particular : we are continuous : & appearing. Not at all
like a mirror : see-through & astoundingly : bloomcamouflaged. Not at all
unhusked : as body : as lightseep : as grief. The house left to dark
in its constricted frame.
My bared, my grief in the teeth. I turn on
every light behind you, our doubled face.
I am feeling the feeling of running
into myself alone in the woods. I call out:
encountering. What is there to do? Layer the self in salt
or the shorn. Cure this animal-head, its heavy antlers-
price into prayer & pillar. Turn myself
back out—: my hands the idea of my hands,
like taxidermied-desire, stuffed over the fawning
mineral-lick of my mouth.