from Winter: Aphorisms
Slipping, a single star out of the light of the sun as I want to eat the baby
who’s eating me want to eat him so ferociously my fists clench want to bite
and swallow him and have him back inside me so ferociously instead I roar
and chomp my jaws at his neck behind his ear to quell the desire roar also
as sometimes he eats at me to keep him asleep while his father also eats
at me to quell or devour and we roar.
*
Mama there is a star falling out of my lip one at a time.
We can’t only do that one at a time. Many of us move through all the other of us
not one at a time.
*
Dark Vader on my penis.
And so I put his underwear on him backwards.
Some people like Dark Vader on their butthole.
Yes.
The people who made this underwear think that most kids like Dark Vader on their butthole.
Yes, that seems true.
I like him on my penis because then I can see him if I want to.
That’s a good point.
See I just bend over and look at Dark Vader.
Just like that!
He’s upside down when I bend over to look at him on my penis.
Yes.
Do you like Dark Vader on your penis Mama?
Yes.
Do you like Dark Vader on your vagina too Mama?
Yes I do.
Not on your butthole, Mama?
I wouldn’t mind Dark Vader on my butthole.
But you’d probably get poop on him, too?
Probably.
It’s okay if you get some poop from your butthole on Dark Vader, Mama.
Thank you.
*
My mind used to be a single tree in that forest now it is a plank
for this house. No. The tree used to be a single tree in that forest
now it is a plank for this house.
Sarah Vap is the author of five collections of poetry and poetics. She is a recipient of a National Endowment of the Arts Grant for Literature, and her sixth collection, Viability, was selected for the National Poetry Series prize and is forthcoming from Penguin (2016).
