When a night is named

Arlyn LaBelle

This is how I will keep you,
wrapped in Christmas lights.
Above me, you shiver like kite skin.
My young body is vanity
I thought I could be a home for anyone

But you, like light, are swelling
in a place I can’t touch,
you are rolling like the shadow
of a cloud.

We are both, so completely
lost to me.

-photo Harry Rajchgot

Speartooth

Arlyn LaBelle

I know your skin,
the bitten place behind
your knee. I know
from being peeled,
from being cleaned
in your small room,
moulding like pleated skirts,
a place I can fall to
when I need to be anyone.