stop loss
most nights you kept her from us behind a door, we could
hear the growling and banshee cries, i’ve come to recognize
now her sin was grieving, and it was also her plight,
so she kept you from us however she could, gripped you
in her pointy hands, coveted you like a precious jewel
teetering on a knife’s edge, yes i lost you once, i lost you
twice, and she was losing long before we came along,
two inconvenient children always a threat to the porcelaine
fine silence of cocktail hour, when we were meant to be seen
and not heard, for that hour she wasn’t losing anything
but preserving you with scotch and ice, so you’d live forever
in that memory, and i wonder if that’s where she returns
to now when she wants to see you, or if she’s since cut her losses
cadaver song
while i wait for twilight to dissipate,
i think about light, and all the ways
it’s betrayed me, i sink my feet deeper
into the wet sand, my backside soaked
from the indifferent comings and goings
of waves, to be in my skin is to feel
nothing, not even the paralyzing cool,
to be in my skin is to want nothing,
not even the heat, especially the heat,
and the light that it brings,
to be in my body is to deserve
nothing, and be nothing,
i’m not even here, a beached buoy,
i am somewhere in that distance
beyond the light of the moon,
cradled somewhere between zen
and oblivion, how full i feel
when empty, i could drift
like a feather, or sink as a rock,
i could sail my voice over alps,
or sojourn into silence,
shatter the bulb of a guiding star,
shutter the lens i’m under,
i wait for dawn to stir the seagulls
and sand crabs, pinchers poised
to consume this carrion
discarded on the shore
Seth Leeper is a queer poet. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in River Styx, Salamander, Hobart After Dark, Juked, and Always Crashing. He holds an M.A. in Special Education from Pace University and B.A. in Creative Writing and Fashion Journalism from San Francisco State University. He lives and teaches in Brooklyn, NY. He tweets @sethwleeper.