Solve for Desire. Caitlin Bailey

clear,

      the beat plain and perfect.

      CHURCH, HIPBONE

      Ready tender mass. Glossy rope, we bare our teeth.

      Equal the church, the hipbone, the sliced ocean.

      That old yank in the throat, bedded for days. Perpetual tangle.

      Something bent, fashioned in fits, memory of your arm

      filling a sleeve. A blue whale’s heart is the size of a small car

      and I am finding it hard to imagine anyone who would not

      be moved to think of that vehicle. I want to drive fast

      into your mouth, leave nothing on the table. Ridge inside

      of me, hurt spot continually worried, thumb brushed

      against collarbone until it begins to crumble. Which parts

      belong to me? Just the blossoming, or the tongued flat skin?