Kim Koga
Synonyms for grace
What if
my tears
were sleep
and I
could keep my
fingers close
to your
mouth all
night to
feel a warm
breath from
your lips
like small rockets
bursting
my heart
As I pull my teeth
As I pull
my teeth
out one by one
you run
into traffic
again
my mouth—
a red echo
for treatment
I am hysterical
and a body swarms
on you again
lighter than before
each tooth a
marker
for all the
beauties and losses
like steam rolled
untarred asphalt
breaking
chunks
for an ocean
bloom
if coral could
live with toxicity
of coals
and native mutant
beings of strands
of DNA planned
like cyclops medusas
who thought
she was beautiful
and awake.
there is coffee
again
spreading
like fruit
flies on rotting
tomatoes
and dust
covered
ligatures holding
plastic practice
netting together
as if something
like fishnet cuts
could
entice another
shark on
the brethren
and broken
celebrities
like brittle
shoved like teeth
into municipalities.
go ahead
and open up
the red
maw of joy
escaping only for
black flies and
small deaths
a rain is upon
the season
like bulls bursting
from my flesh.
She shapes up
She shapes
up like
peregrinations
at dawn
licking flickering
like starlings who’ve
invaded and
taken over live
oaks and mossy landscapes
each object
each unique chaotic tic
becomes a starling
shape in flight
at sleep at birth
at death
feeding like lions
on abandoned kills
called them the
hyena of the skies
like double moon
double sun
rustic and squandered
she is the last
pail of water from the
boat before it
drowned.
the last pail of water
before they died.
hydrophobic and
dying of thirst.
She keeps lists
like bomb raids
in WWII trying to
define which
attack will be
her next.
awake like a siren
and crumbling like
heavens and
the fingers of a
tiramisu both lady like
and drowned in
mascarpone and
coffee and sugar and cocoa
it comes across
as polite and
graceful gracious
if they knew
who she had
killed
for these delights like
soft fringe
a photograph hidden
the small deaths
and long long
nights that led
her here.
she takes the
chickens feet
and skulls like
limes to be juiced
in burlap sacks
longer than the
length of her body
scraping at
bark of willow
woods and
acacias for the
places where
their skulls
got stuck after
going through
windshields not
collared at all
but a full-body
effect
it is in those cells
she clammers for
divine
headaches
pinning chicken feet
to palace walls
the heads begin
to speak
in unison
degraded voices
like movie reels
that were never
quite restored the
lowest of the lo-fi like
a wax cylinder
where voices were
kept
echoing out again
into the spare
spaces that
are truly bare
and fallow lands.
it almost sounds
like cries of
starlings distorted
and crashing—
colliding like
a sky of mad
locusts / bullets / bulls / bombs
Kim Koga is the author of Ligature Strain from Tinfish Press. Her work can be found in 1913 a journal of forms, Erotoplasty, and Burning House Press. Since completing an MFA from the University of Notre Dame, she works in tech and continues to write, make art, and maintains a breadbox in southern California.