Melissa Knox Evans

ISHTAR AS SESTINA (BROKEN / DEIXIS)

be / because  //  because sweat didn’t run off

your  forehead  and fall between her  thighs /

their past is  fixation  and front-running is //

because shadows taught us to blowback slurs

fired   onto  the  fulcrum   /   now   gentleness

triggers because  //  when they arc her barrel

back hard  he can’t feel them hard-fired swift

reversals front-swinging because // you won’t

run  by  the bus we  lie  her  in the   backlands

fire-black  /  until  his  front  and  the  grey  in

their    words    exenterated   this    /   because

handling does because // fired backed in myth

was  death  /  disaster / affront lines tied back

with lies   /  hardening ties  hardening  fast //

because  stars  in  burnt  morning  ray  arcane

over  cock-tilt  shadows   scratching  /  coring

fire-tied / fire and  fire-quenching thirst at his

front of  the day  /  because  someone  else  lit

them and seared / my / wick / out / she mined

every breath  / twelve years  / muffled nights /

but  lines   drawn  in  dust  just  backdated  the

blast  /  now  temple  the furnace again  //  and

know // she frayed hard / vast / true / because

you did not ask // be / cause

Melissa Knox Evans lives in Oxford UK. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Stoneboat Literary JournalBarzakh Magazine, The Write Launch, Cathexis Northwest Press, Inklette Magazine, The Banyan Review, Hare’s Paw Journal, The Closed Eye Open, Equinox Journal, and elsewhere. She is Editor in Chief of science and arts publication SEISMA Magazine

Full Profile