intimate & bodily history with grief 

ultimate & sorrowful position of body 

i cannot sleep   o ugly   a dress or home 

could clothe these bones in ghosts

cleft axe of my chin   sharp animal nowhere

& ribcage slung   hands wrung with good grief 

suck blood from monster blood   show me where 

it hurts   i tell the mind doctor my body

yearns with invisible hunger   if i could ghost 

myself i would   & cut unclean stems off an unclean home

heavy-fingered   o hunter   i cannot go home 

but to comely sleep   haunted by one dream like a ghost 

each time i hear my name it sounds like grief

each time i sound my grief it weeps like body

don’t wish between werewolf & woman a want where

all stories decide for me: silver bullets & somewhere

otherwise cured   & by moon-smell lured   i howl for home

the mind doctor explains what to do   eat it   my body

whose blue is not calming   a drowned state of grief 

Adam’s apple’s silent story of Eden   that ghost

& if i call it a snake will you believe in hosts

haunted & flaunting my where becomes wear 

& did that pomegranate taste like rib or grief 

i cannot sleep   o doctor   in this flesh-funeral home 

i don’t know how to human   much less embody  

more than my blood   dead or living   or voice disembodied 

i am only myself listening to their own ghost

& i cannot dream off these monsters i wear 

my want is gentle genesis   gay home 

my life half-unlived leaves a walking dreamless grief

until home is remade   this sleep stained with grief 

can be seen   no body is dirty   my ghost 

beauty   this soft invisible haunting i wear

James O’Leary (they/them) is a bi, gender-fluid poet and writer from Arizona. After spending some time up and down their home state, James has currently relocated to New York City, where they are pursuing an MFA at Sarah Lawrence College and will graduate in May 2021. James’s work has appeared in such places as Frontier, HAD, The Indianapolis Review, and Kissing Dynamite, where their work was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. You can find James on Twitter @thesundaypoet