This poison dress is simply laced

This poison dress is simply laced
nowhere up the back. Can vertebrae
C1 through Th6 at least
persuade the awe of the vertical
inheritances to please climb back
down the mountaintop, remember
genes are only foolish bric-a-brac
compared to futures we renumber
every gloaming? Or at least the eves
we allow the past to watch our spines.
This poison dress I wear with ease
at least tonight. At least tonight spans
a timeline longer than my distress
normally counts without disease.

 

 

Thomas Mixon was a featured writer at Mass Poetry’s U35 reading series in Boston. His work has appeared in Breadcrumbs, Twenty-two Twenty-eight, and The Sunlight Press.