Ace of Cups (Reversed)

What Spoke and Dark
by Jessica Bixel

A man with his hands on me in all the new ways I’d learned
to be handled. The closest I’ve ever been to enjoying panic.

Errantry is his mouth at my neck and that winter all the bees
were found dead. First the clatter of their frozen bodies and then

I know, I know I’m only gathering another loss.
Never mind those weltered pines, the sky bent low and gray-skirted.

Brimmed heart he has me. By the wrist, the waist, the only way down.
I’m one more well-loved bruise against the snow.

Jessica Bixel (she/her) is an Aquarian and a Michigander. Her poems have been printed in Sugared Water, Handsome, Parcel, Best New Poets, Grist, and Whiskey Island.