POETRY
Let Me No Longer Walk Away
Nina Reljić
from the hunger that is asked of me I want the poem
that sits just beneath the skin and to walk towards
something with hot blood and urgency I want
real appetite without virtue or sin I want to smoke less
or I want more lung I want the dignity of red apples
the rigour of morning through any unfamiliar window
and I have wanted to get back to the boy whose
hair smelled of fresh earth who was a slick love
poem already in the making and if not I then who else
will bite the boy whose bed I laid in when he said
he could dump my body out back no one would find
me and I don’t mean bite in the fun way what I want
is to gut a fish so cleanly I won’t know language only
scales and today I walked through a forest the colour
of money and between the trees light mottled it’s there
I buried my speaker in dirt but she wouldn’t stay put
her hands kept erupting half moving out of darkness
half reaching for the living when something insists
on resurrection what can you do but take her home