Aubade with Ravens

By Jessica Lynn Suchon

When you sleep, the moon plucks hurt from my palm

like a loose thread, unravels

skin and leaves a skeleton of iron in your bed. I dream silver-

veined marble basins filled

with cream. I dream the ravens that bathe there, the scream

of wings as white spatters

from feathers and freckles the sky with constellations.

Morning reminds me how closely we sleep

and when you reach for me,

already awake and wanting, I stay

curled away from your chest. I want to tell you

I loved a man who beat me bloody and he left me

scared of everything. Listen,

I am trying to warn you

how my body cannot be trusted, that pain takes

strange forms. Any light I swallow leaves just as—

—

About Jessica Lynn Suchon

Suchon is the author of Scavenger, winner of the 2018 Vinyl 45 Chapbook Contest and forthcoming from YesYes Books in 2019. She has recieved honors from the Academy of American Poets, as well as an Aspen Words Emerging Writer Fellowship. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Copper Nickle, Willow Springs, Ninth Letter, Yemassee, Muzzle Magazine, and RHINO, among others. She is a 2019 Tennessee Playwrights Studio Fellow and the 2019 Femoire Poet-in-Residency. “Aubade with Ravens” can also be found in issue 39.2 along with other wonderful poems and prose. You can follow Jessica on twitter and instagram by searching the handle @JessicaLSuchon.