Poetry by CD Eskilson

                        Ashley Harrigan CC 




Self-Portrait with Werewolf 1 


Tucked behind the backwood
in a borrowed car, we grip the doors, 

pass silver coins between our
mouths. I wear a new white dress, 

a flower crown, rhinestones beaded
to my snout. Flash a fang for you 

and hope to graduate from myth.
Watch me strip the want 

from bones. Lovely beast. My trying
wolfs to beauty. What’s a monster 

but a body deemed impossible,
the glossed fur and pale thighs 

quivered at your touch. As a child
I felt the bite sink in, tried 

stopping it. For years tongued bullets,
cracked enamel, kept gurgling 

a dead name. Kept this body graceless.
But a boy can only stifle howling 

so long, deny entry to the lair.
Here woods blaze with mirklight, 

spark a gleam against your claw
and offer prey. I lick my lips, 

I kiss the moon; it took so long
to get here. 


                                               
1 Title draws on Charlie Fox’s Essay of a similar name.




​
The Shape of Water 


            I dreamt gills took me
to the sea floor, my scaled 

             and piscine body camouflaged
in reefs. Fins cupped the dark 

              in each lagoon, tried finding
benthic quiet. As a kid 

               the shape of water was
a shot glass. Mom’s drowning, 

                nightly tempest, a dust bin’s
glinted shards. Her brother owned 

                the tides but not a driver’s license,
her father a lost sailor. The wave-rack 

                 through my body. I dreamt of
shark teeth gnashing bottles, can rings 

                  webbed across my mouth.
Of washing up where tourists 

                    mourned me. How hard is it 
to drain an ocean, dredge violence 

                    from this blood. The irony
of nights my sibling called 

                     swearing to run off again,
dragged me out of parties where 

                      I tongued coves. Don’t let me
dip a finger in this pool, the shadow 

                      sloughing off my back. I let
riptide love me till I catch myself 

                      and thrash, fish eyes peering 
from below. I keep from coasts, 

                       carry chunks of solid ground.
I’m scared of sinking, swimming too. 

​

CD Eskilson is a queer nonbinary poet, editor, and educator from Los Angeles. Their work appears in Redivider, Barren Magazine, Ghost City Review, Moonchild Magazine, and Peach Mag, among others. CD is Poetry Editor for Exposition Review and reads for Split Lip Magazine.

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