Dismantling Arkansas Stars

by M.E. Riley

mouth-deep love
mud between your teeth

Unlearn constellations
to see stars:

     twisted back of the archer
     whiskey-tipped bull horns

     pots hanging overhead
     full mattress on floor

The dotted home we
wished to move into

mouth-
deep love mud
between your teeth

Going back toward childhood
will not help:

     plastic-seamed Fisher-Price embrace
     smell of Barbie’s synthetic resin

Insist on love              spoil it
reach my body within yours

Eat the wildness of a new
one already in our bed

mouth-deep
love mud between
your teeth

M.E. Riley sweats in New Orleans. She is an assistant poetry editor and blog editor for Bayou Magazine. Her work is forthcoming or has most recently appeared in Bop Dead City, Quaint Magazine, The Rain, Party, and Disaster Society, similar:peaks::, The Feminist Wire, Ghost Ocean Magazine, Every Day Poems, Nude Bruce Review, Eunoia Review, Belle Journal, and Best of Tales from the South, Volume VI.