Margaret Wack
I cannot read the stories of men in love: the slow, sad smiles the squeamish ache the pink, slippery desire I want to rub my head on you like a dog lick the salt from your fingers lie lazily at your feet as you stroke and stroke and stroke me I like when you look at me with lion eyes my arched back my taught legs smooth and supple like gazelles like red meat on the dry savannah of all the vicious hungry animals in the kingdom you cannot be a broken bird I cannot be a small girl with hands that cradle you we can be loons, we can be leopards we can be hawks, we can be hornets we can be everything (manifold and multiplying) as long as your heart is as red and huge as the ox’s heart as long as your mouth is as hot and huge as the tiger’s maw as long as you reach out and touch me and I turn to you the smell of desire in my snout the steady hunger that has been with me since the dawn of time
Margaret Wack had her work previously published in Strange Horizons, Liminality, and Noble/Gas Qtrly, among others. More can be found at margaretwack.com.