the fog is a sheep’s heart, evaporates
on page 43

hot tea and tamp the firewood storm
heavy sweet wet in her eyes

Cathy, just down a shot of whiskey
girl saltwater that slim white neck

cut a thick cake demurely
exhale the sleeping moor air

nightmare brusque dark
it has to go somewhere

why not your clavicle?
she wishes she could stay

vulnerable: open like a barn door breeze
beasts shuffle in, smell sweet H.

grass stuck to calves, taste thistle
sweat on lip, garlic squalor, a white shirt

kingdom, don’t sexualize her regret
thin and thick wrists entwine

that’s all the hotness in a broom closet
frolic the water stems over

translucent skin, lastly
weave her forgotten skeletal face

he’ll never forget the city, the farm
so far away for H, the town could be in Siberia

his son grows up and down
all of Cathy’s tomb stone fingers

doesn’t know how to
lock the door at nigh

Jennifer MacBain-Stephens lives in Midwest and is the author of three full length poetry collections: "Your Best Asset is a White Lace Dress," (Yellow Chair Press, 2016) "The Messenger is Already Dead," (Stalking Horse Press, March 2017,) and “We’re Going to Need a Higher Fence,” tied for first place in the 2017 Lit Fest Book Competition. Her chapbook “She Came Out From Under the Bed, (Poems Inspired by the Films of Guillermo del Toro)” recently came out from Dancing Girl Press. Recent work can be seen at or is forthcoming from Prelude, Cleaver, Kestrel, Yalobusha Review, decomp, and Inter/rupture. Visit: http://jennifermacbainstephens.wordpress.com/