Luke Downes

1.

Rotting apple.
Glorious, rotting, inside-out apple
for the beetles and birds
to get drunk on.

I am still a scavenger
too anxious
to move in alone
for the grisly slaughter.

she has a handful
of secret hopes

A snake,
twenty-two feet
of reptilian beauty,

i want to drive south into mexico to
sit on a warm beach, down cervezas
on the hood of my chevy

When we are having breakfast
your voice oscillates and I’d swear

I’ve pulled the canvas off again,
just the easel and frame remain.

1.
he is sick.
white lies tied in red ribbons.

that’s when my heart beats hard,
thought it’s in no mood for love.

The smells of other women
were a disturbing telltale
she was being kept
like an animal.

i am a river creeping
away from the source of my
busted possibility,

That night makes me feel like
Nina Simone.

II.

My emotions
are sashimi
meant to be dealt with gently

I have to tip-toe
on my toe-tips
to avoid the honey of your lips.

here is this madwoman:
who once took a chipping axe
to her daredevil heart.

You like to cock the hammer,
swing the sword,
threaten to kick the chair
out from under
a man with a noose round his neck.

everything is a switch to flip
an itch to scratch
in the middle of my back

I think there’s something wrong with me
and
I think what I found
was only a crease

and too often,
I make poison
with words
they fall out like a mouthful of arsenic