From the Archive: Natalie Zina Walschots (CAROUSEL 27)

Staff/ October 9, 2020/ Poem

NATALIE ZINA WALSCHOTS

Charybdis

wolf-bellied and writhing
she the rock to your whirlpool

all bladder all mouth
you vomit seawater
effluence all salt

slavering tentacle to gaping maw
perfect dinner companions

you shatter the vessel
she devours the crew

Lex

my stately pleasure dome, decree

Parasite

hunger gone hollow

slobber shanked
gnaw to marrow

swallow

Doom

grillwork

rebuff skin, bitten superconductor
data scatters toes to TENS unit
my circuit shortens

gauntlet

concave vice, blasted infrared
tatters tracked heat signature
what alloy allows

jetpack

optical scan amplified
thrusters on high

thing for green
face only a geneticist could love

forget naked
gift a tissue sample

lick a shuddering helix
each rung humming tenderness

forget underwire
my nucleotides get you off

no chink or hinge
seamless hydraulic

nothing crude as gears
murmur of precision aluminum

barest brush concussive
fission to frisson

proximity to hiss and scrape
lights internal combustion

force field dialed down
‘til it tingles