Our postmortem by Nikkin Rader

Our postmortem
​

There is less felt than is known in the grimacing slippings
between us, post encounter where body met body in the
musk of whiskey lips and open chests, armed and bearing
semblance to that of shattered glass, cascaded past palms
into the makings of our experience, each the other’s patron
of arts or confidant of dark smoke sinning our skins to shade.
Maybe then we’d think of setting someone on fire or sputter
-ing a quick hold me after you or I let hand bolt to the other’s
cheek. What, then, in that darkness, makes us lure toward the
light? That bright orb waiting to suck in all that which keeps me
going, and all of that which keeps you gone.  Partial to wavering
I keep this wickedness a muster internal, shedding skins in place
of cigarette butts on pavement.  Painted on the bark like that taut
titillation, these oscillating fantastical premises between us, drear
and mob.  Red-worn and tarnished as the achings of morrow, left
undone.



Nikkin Rader has a MFA in Poetry and grad minor in Gender & Sexuality Studies.  Her works can be found in lipstickparty mag, leopardskin and limes, the Cauldron Anthology, Pussy Magic, Occulum, and elsewhere.