Lorrie Ness

January Confession

We walk the two-track, tongues wintering
inside our cheeks. There is no limit on the words for cold, 

no name for the way language distorts between bloodless lips.
White sky sharpens a poplar’s silhouette, 

hones every branch into a blade.
I slice my tongue saying limb, crack my lips with leaves,

and wait for a pain that will never come. I welcome
the numbness of a freeze, 

how the sudden effort of speech returns us
to an infancy—when the struggle to speak left only room 

for suckle and need. I tangle my fingers into yours,
tell you how the horizon is a hinge, how vultures stitch wings

to the backs of deer.

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Lorrie Ness writes from a rural corner of Virginia. Her work has appeared in Palette Poetry, THRUSH, Trampset, Sky Island Journal and many others. She has published two collections at Flowstone Press: Heritage & Other Pseudonyms and Anatomy of a Wound. Her work has been nominated for Puschart and Best of the Net Awards. More about her writing can be found at www.lorrieness.com