Their love story looks like nausea rising,
slick mouths storming against each other
like they were being fed, nourished. How
often do mammals substitute this for food?
Their closeness, I can understand, for warmth.
There are only so many hollow trees and
I am built to fly into headwinds. My wings
are constantly, subconsciously, flapping
so fast to them that if they were to look
(they don’t), I’d be hovering. A slow,
steady heat. Blood flushing their cheeks
like they have finally experienced flight.
The pointlessness of how they lounge in
each other. I hear their stomachs growl
as they submit, eyes closed, to distraction,
leaving themselves open to predators.
Mark Ward is the author of the collections Real Estate (2026) and Nightlight (2023), both from Salmon Poetry, as well as six pamphlets, the most recent of which is Masters (The Emma Press, 2025). He is currently working on two projects: a verse novel and a third collection.
More work by Mark Ward
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