from THE LOVE BOOK
A flower burst in my head speaking in a fever tone. “Fever,” flower said, sobbing from the deepest gifted source. “I miss your far-fetched
report.” Rainbow from deep-love singing & singing. In deep-love we sang from a broken bowl. In deep-love our bowl misted many times over.
O deep-love o deep-love you sound like a rubbed blaze. Rave, a bloodless rave, with a-nus for lips, red-tinged, tinged red until headlights shone in its heart. Its heart sang & it reached for lungs
to laugh their way to martyrdom. A peacock ran with his wolf to the top of the pack. I swear my pack lay flung to the core. Lay flung to
the side of the dazzle. Misty blue sky that fills my lungs until my
lungs breathe, until the lungs breathing fetched a love in their
midst. My love spoke of so much. Hey bonnie bonnie, red ribbon pabst blue plunking at my heart. You called for a prayer-shaped hull and I crashed into you, head bent, legal only unto you. Tender rights
intact. Tack-tacking out of my teeth, snar-gum fitting its way into my heart. My love My love: this is how you came through. Like a lap //
like a wave // like a slap // like a slave: I hear water dribbling
into your head. Must it always end so in // dread? A crack of thunder
righted itself.
Monica Mody's work was featured in the Boston Review Poet's Sampler (introduced by Joyelle McSweeney) and has also appeared in West Wind
Review, Nether, Cannot Exist, Compost, horse less review, and apocryphal text, among other journals. She is the author of a
chapbook, Travel & Risk, from Wheelchair Party, and has a book
forthcoming in Fall 2012 from 1913 Press.