When you’re back,
look
to your left
there’s a great deal of it spread thin though
I’d like to scoop & saver, too,
slather on the skin I had at seventeen.
Bone dust setting spray keeps
your ears pulled back
keeps
you younger than you need
a certain charm at that age I’m sure
I didn’t have then
I’ve not now nor
ever. It’s the midmorning
drive when I
steamroll my mom’s first—
she calls a female cardinal not quite as beautiful.
The meat of you pierced, is drunk
on something bad or deepthroating something worse.
RACHEL STEMPEL is a genderqueer Jewish poet and educator. They were a finalist in the 2020 New Delta Review Chapbook Content, longlisted for the 2020 Fish Publishing Poetry Prize, and their work has appeared in or is forthcoming from The Nasiona, New Delta Review, The Journal, Penn Review, Porter House Review, and elsewhere.
