Devon Walker-Figueroa
Infidelectation

 

 

Faithless as the day

         is to the hour, I am

                moving into a new

 

body every second. Take. Bleat.

          Do this in severance of me

                 from me, in reverence of you as you

 

swoon me, cocoon me in untimely

         & iterant devotions. Body. Blood.

                           Man who thinks His flesh

 

transforms

        guilt into grace, without a trace of

                           lust for this never-lasting

 

life. Nictitating

       eyes that just won’t quit

                         strobing my face

 

back into my face. Lashes

       stroking the space between

                us, what will close, but not

 

like an image of promise encircling

          skin encircling bone, but will last only

                                              until last is another

 

sound that cannot be made

           sense of. I do

                    not worship the covenants

 

birth brought us into. This

         and this and bliss have

                no affection for each other,

 

even the rules of self

              love cannot fill them

                      with desire. What weds

 

be to be to will have

              been seems nothing

                       more than the double

 

death of forget-

              fulness and faith. Breath

                         being the only rhythm

 

still lacing loss

        to its opposite, I can say I have broken

                       no promise, no bread that is not bread.

 

 
Found In Volume 46, No. 05
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Devon Walker-Figueroa
About the Author

Devon Walker-Figueroa is a recent graduate of The Iowa Writers' Workshop and serves as co-founding editor of Horsethief Books. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in New England ReviewLos Angeles Review of Books QuarterlyCopper NickelTin House Online, and The Iowa Review