I cannot hurt you. there will be nothing left to hurt

. 

when I show you my teeth, flat molars & curved canines,

I am trying to smile, 

but smile & hunger make close neighbors. when I say hunger 

I mean
a very deep hole lined with knapped flints

deepening the more you fill it 

.

when I speak of moon

                        I mean any part of sky reflecting your face

.

when I undress you, I begin with clothes & proceed with skin. the only 

pain is what you could carry 

in your lungs 
when you followed me over frozen river 

.

when you touch smooth white crown of my face
trace nighted gulfs where eyes would be
branching possibilities of my antlers 

I am trying to breathe you in. & when I say breath
I mean thunder

.

when you smell fire & charred fur on mineral bite of winter 
I am thinking of you 

. 

not everything eaten dies

Jonathan Louis Duckworth received his MFA from Florida International University. His fiction, poetry, and non-fiction appears in New Ohio Review, Fourteen Hills, Meridian, Tupelo Quarterly, Jabberwock Review, Superstition Review, Flash Fiction Online, and elsewhere. His chapbook “Book of Never” is forthcoming with Finishing Line Press.