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  • 36Kr : : The Hidden One, and: 80Hg : : Liquid Silver
  • Rosebud Ben-Oni (bio)

36Kr : : The Hidden One

I wear the double mask of argon to awaken youinto my dream. There's no need to make an entrancebeneath chandelier of wet wax & skin. No blue velvetwalls, no blue lady hellebores blooming in precious oil flames.Between us, you are the rarer noble, mostly untouched & mono-chromatic. Too remote to grace. So I quickstep like a whisperthat fogs up higher ground. I swivel the air while all your electronsplay it cool. While I keep the pressure low enough & bless Teslacoils to excite you. Until, together, we smother & twist the roominto chartreuse. How only I can make you react by being seen.At midnight, we cast off shaky veneer of venetian feather, tulle & glister,bare the bliss of grimace as we bless a string quartet out of the last harpist.Drag me, lover, over raspy aria, over power ballad.Lose us in the thick of black mondo grass, my Queen of Night tulip. [End Page 70]

80Hg : : Liquid Silver

Screw electricity. Sever the silent horseskittering back & forth, captive in sealedglass. Shatter those who smothered youonto their soles, simply to walk on water.What I'd give to palm the quick in your quiver & dripsuch a singular solidity down my chin & liver. Conductyour bloody symphony between my kidneys, sweet mein bitter tremors. Take my measure as your one & onlyfever. I'll bury every barometer. Don't you know I'm toxicfor you? I float & volcano. I'm the coin that keeps Charonferrying the dead; I'm the last one he's dying to accept.Let's never end torment. Let's sepsis & sing—my nervoussystem is already dissolving. Split me from rock & hold me down,swallowing deeply. Spin the gold out, like dirty shine from a mouth. [End Page 71]

Rosebud Ben-Oni

ROSEBUD BEN-ONI is the winner of the 2019 Alice James Award for If This Is the Age We End Discovery, forthcoming in 2021; her second collection, turn around, BRXGHT XYXS, was selected as Agape Editions' Editor's Choice, and will be published in 2019. Her poem "Poet Wrestling with Angels in the Dark" was commissioned by the National September 11 Memorial and Museum in New York. She writes for the Kenyon Review blog.

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