DICTATION.

—then sweeping with a gust/     shriven splotches

       of wilted poppies—murder/of color

       bright plot     to sea-sicken/my flush planks—botch

matte i've worn/desk to bed—crude-hued mother.

—i had to      glint/wingtip—slash rain/a tern

       scissoring a nosebleed—quick/fish skim wind

       outbreak of earwigs/ebbing toward the berm

—slam     /and hide     clam hands inside good oven.

       blisters    /witness     my pardon/i'm unfit

for penning coups—see     black/white—unsea blue

—lye/     scour tongue—rich     glare of bruises/surfeit

of what done     gave you bloom plum/lake and true

      right the slashes/i wrote     by rote i write—

no—but heaps     of blood-fists thump     yes/my blight.

—Lauren de Paepe

☜