Emily Winters                                                                                                                    

Sin

The chalk-kissed dashes have never blurred,

Even as my sightless sight can only look so far (in the empty night).

My full and protruding stomach can only hold so much,

It can only be home to so many,

For the fishes get crowded when the water gets polluted –

They get sick and they get panicked,

They contract what is commonly known as “dead.”

I know the facts of life;

I know things of things –

Yet even while my stomach flounders,

My organs punching around the ring,

I’ll soak my gut in wine in the early morn’ and I’ll spoon feed my liver whiskey (when the moon is near).

The road is not a nebulous streak,

It is not a body in a body, outlined in silver chalk, its promiscuous shape irradiated by our night-light…

I see no splayed limbs,

Torn and ravaged heart!

I see nothing at all.

Nothing but my own sin.