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Syntax Issue 10
Denver Syntax
{thespianna to her brute}
  coleen shin



To hell with symmetry, I love your shade
the branch of your left arm, your knobby twigs
caught in my hair with the sparrows that nest there.

Measure me curled and fetal, from head to hip
the size of me, the containment of my dreams
the child that fends off strangers, mimes in sleep
all past criminal activities, all bumps into cabinets.

The fat of your paunch is my pillow now
the rumble of your last meal, muted thunder
how close I am to being swallowed whole

by the relentless love of your humane heart
your unspoken secret language boiling over.
Will it ever be enough for a scribe like myself
who must write it down to find it out?