nictate:
winking my cousin’s boyfriend
lifted the bottle to his lips then left
I placed my lips to the opening taste what was left behind
nidificate, nidify:
gravid guinea pig
scratches at the wood shavings
bares her teeth and tries to bite when I offer water
later, there is blood and squeakings
small, pink versions of her
a clutch of blind hunger
nidor:
garlic ginger onion frying in oil
a pang and my mouth fills with water
and my plate is as empty as I am
nidus:
eggs like shy white flags
ripen to parasites that itch the skin
stick their wicked needles in suck and feed
nigrescent:
at the world’s widest circumference
one minute’s sunset
is another minute’s pause for breath
and then night
nival:
everything went white
my fingers my lips
even my eyes went cold inside their lids
noctambulist:
I once walked out a sleeping house
to see the moon
trees tethered their shadows
and I was the only one that moved
nodated:
in the churchyard
a tree clad in bark strange lumps like fish
trying to swim out
slowly
through the years
noddle:
the culprit don’t believe it
is the one true perpetrator
neither heart nor the gut
not your spine or your spleen
your hands are blameless
the culprit is this
Poem
N
Ivy Alvarez