Poetry: Julie Doxsee

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GIANT ATTRACTION WITH CREATURES

Everyone’s tooth
is a little machine

that can’t starfish itself
to the lip it loves.

The way you speak
hits the ceiling & stays there

laryngitic, a blue noise
photoshopped clean I can’t

stand so vertical. What brought
this image to light made a

motorcycle-growl & chicks
exploded from the eggs

you would have cracked into
my mouth. What brought this

image to light wrapped a
perfume ad around your hand

during the immaculate peeping
so you wave goodbye to infinity.

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LEISURE ACTIVITY

I know something we can do
together. We just lean our

heads back like this to the wall
where our voices won’t register

eye to eye. When we vanish
a white field will roll out

where poolwater used to be
& the hem of the grove

will quiver like someone cut it
out of the landscape & threw it

up high to cover the
top of the sun. See how good

that feels on our throats.
Men take pictures of us

glowing & we never know it.

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Julie Doxsee is the author of two books: Undersleep (Octopus 2008) and Objects for a Fog Death (Black Ocean 2009). She teaches writing and literature in Istanbul, Turkey.

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