You wrinkle in this palace you will curdle
this pony as it molds to my face. My love

shrieks from postured sculpture. This space
is elegant with rooms caked in honey

you will be my frozen caper. In the golden
henhouse this palace has become a barn. I sink

in tubs of glue I am receptored and rolling.
I encircle intestinal conglomerations that creep.

I will protect your pretty cushion your saffron
laced stitches. Your words are sallow and you bleed

inward as if you had a choice now to gurgle
my throbbing eye. As a chirping

pastor you receive my flavored needles.
I could filter a weave of dust

mix the parts you could want from praying.
I contain a horse to brush with your lips

let me shape my fenced dilemma.
You have your own dreams spinning

as a tree in a pond. My teeth are blind
with hunger you have a flickering stench.

Shine in the night during day. Stroke
my animal like a fracture of volition.

Tell me you not. Do. If you resemble
a mirror tell me my incisors flash toward a belly.

If you have tunneled a neck you are this palace.
I am steward of the immense buttresses. I lick

the rust and sparkle these furbelow
swinging eyes sift through a world of sexual

misgivings. I give advance warning
you will mash hard. Please do not dream

you are a finely crafted cello I will roar
into your body I will resonate your wood.

Let my mouth breeze holes in my cheeks
let my tongue swell like a wave. I am undoing

my head I am shoaling my loaded palm
with corpses as angels shelter my hovering

hearth. In a mountain you will cradle me
as an island I am the danger cry.

I call my monstrosity ribbon
bones in my chest. Overload the position

sing to the not-quite-morning
blue as if you will sigh partitions

of gloaming fruit. I am here cruxed
and open. You are shorn empty

of embrace and hunger. I listen
to your fluttering cries for place

I begin to macerate a hive of marching
hope in order for you to plea beyond

the small of my back.

A native of Iowa City, Josh Fomon is an MFA candidate at the University of Montana and serves as Editor-in-Chief for CutBank. He has poems appearing or forthcoming in Caketrain, iO: A Journal of New American Poetry and Ilk. He contributes poetry book reviews for Read This Awesome Book.

"Figure Study" by Meredith Steele