Today's poem is by Natalie Louise Tombasco

DRAWBRIDGE + MOAT
        after Marianne Moore

Gingerly, yes,
With the intactness
        Of a walled city or coaxed throat that's been hinged open
        By ginseng. I begin with a primordial sigh

Like when Sappho
Lets go of fragments; wind
        Fetch rushing land as wet vengeance. Sighs are swimming in
        River mud with frog-spawn. Sighs are walking in petti-

Coats and ancient
Shoes. The golden bough
        Lets go all resignation in bride-white sighs. The lyre
        Accumulates a sighful impediment. Wingéd

Chariot—too
Fussy? I speak in this
        Secret language, passive as if things just happen, but
        I swear, by the end, I'll be draped in sighs like ermine

Upon a heap
Of rime-royal, Oxford
        Commas. Aristocratic pugs eat from this soft plain:
        My hand. Good boy, good. My sex is a semicolon—

I will never
Properly know how to
        Use it. Who doth makes the rules? Queenhood will breed grave dis-
        Appointment. I have hips; sue me. All my sighs will be

Celibate, joust-
Ing lances charge any
        Foreign breach. Such a sheepish renaissance with all its
        Overtones, undertones, Ulyssessing. Ugh, poet-

Ess! What is my
True utterance? Is it
        A grunt? a nag? I am quite afraid the moat will break,
        The rush that sets speil into motion. It's all over

For you hoes when
I mix Glory into
        My night cream—devastate thine enemies. There will be
        No Romantic verticality, no Icarus

Cloudward leap. God,
These v. expensive
        Lipstick tubes melt. Only earthly things, where a sigh may
        Open up in the ground any second. Now I ride

Through a semi-
Permeable membrane:
        Plush, red bed. Is it time for a quest? I've spent all week
        In uncomfortable shoes; I'd like a little rest.

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Copyright © 2023 Natalie Louise Tombasco All rights reserved
from Black Warrior Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission