croon 
            over rotting deer carcass
                                    an emo boy band 
                        about to drop a new album
I fantasize       
            about people
                                                    who don’t/can’t see me
I turn up the stereo                                          melody bleeds 
                                                                                    into skin
sun asphyxiates
            desire
                                                              the closest thing to wanted
                                                  I’ve felt in years 

I envy the corpse of that doe
kissed with ferocity/attention
an armadillo soccer-balled 
                        on the highway
                                    trees dead/one day into spring

I think about faking/death
            curling into my body 
                                    a roly poly            
                                                       waiting
            for the right amount of fingertip to flesh
                                     as not to shock my nerve endings

what is it about ghosts
predator/prey
that send me into a frenzy
of wanting.

Jennifer E. Hudgens (they/them) has been previously published in some stuff and released a full length collection Girls Who Fell in Love With War {Swimming with Elephants 2016}, chapbook Paloma {Blood Pudding Press 2017} as well as assistant poetry editor at Cimarron Review and poetry editor at Petrichor.