Little boy I could eat you. Swallow you
whole, pick your nails from the gaps
in my teeth. I’d spit on you, let my hair
float, a woolen mop. Feel tears ooze
out of my skin. The water of my chest,
a set of rulers, will snap across your
knuckles, make them swell up blue.
I laugh at the hand of cards lying
on the wooden table. You lost, with
the cows, our green wedding rings, to
your brother in a barn. Your mouth,
a jagged key, cuts my cheek, I could
scream at the moon nailed in black.
Little boy, drink your milk and kiss me,
the coyotes howl tonight, I can hear
the chickens fuss from my window.
Natalie Scenters-Zapico is a fronteriza poet from the sister cities of El Paso, Texas and Juárez, México. She is an MFA candidate at the University of New Mexico in poetry and will be the new poetry co-editor for Blue Mesa Review.