Take a mattress. Put it in our woods.
how it is you have found yourself within
me; found you out – antlers scuttling raw
around the lake,
again & again, a determination
found in my pacing, so that
looming in the floral spores before their teething
churned bit by bit & lived in – I have
been in you,
one referent & oscillating twilight
of the symmetries we are authors
nacreous not recreant
the first folders of wedding dress & sewists
of mudded foul & too,
the congenital dowry
an exercise in every
djinn in fugue & moving
root; confession – even in turning
from me – when I was both
contractual & of plasticity – being both
there and feeling,
our imbued room (trespassed)
as I returned —
sanguine & slept in
having unbecome you & been menstruous
I used my hands & still the sea
rich in silver chevron & no smell
to remember, how it would no longer reveal itself
(but these disobedient
salivas —showing themselves & collating)
but mistook a the cadence of a quest for a guest
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Visual artist Victoria Parker draws inspiration from dream worlds and contrasts in nature and urban environments. She collects odd vintage figurines and beach rocks and is currently saving up dryer lint with which she will make her brother a surprise doll. A native Seattleite, she has also lived in Kalamazoo, New York City and Okinawa, Japan. She lives in Seattle with her husband and two children.
Kristin Withers is a poet currently residing in the Pacific Northwest. She has been an industrial sewist, coffee roaster, bookseller, realty & teaching assistant. Kristin’s disciplined in analytic philosophy, focusing particularly on epistemology & the metaphysics of consciousness. With initial publication at The Inquisitive Eater: New School Food, she is currently working on a gallery in liminal nocturne & a concept collection of autoscopic language poetry.