Locution II: this is a love that kills by Nicole Rollender

A swallow’s wings splayed / on the barn floor / crucified. / Do sun-
drifting bones / remember the whole / of the bird? / Looking back
through its flight / the eyes that saw / a whole world / in joy / cloud-
wandering / baby in slick / yellowed afterbirth / spine glowing wonder.
If this is love / if this is pain / verdigris on the heart / if this is a paean
I could memorize / his first cry / & now cannot remember / the parting
of our birth-marked / bodies. A primordial / mourning overcast / over-
laid with Gregorian / chants my son born / two months early / my son.
Not a king / we build a tomb / for as he reigns / spirit of ferocious sun.
My body / a door / a death-gate / if his heart / his cloistral before-life
lingering / in shadow, in spectral / waters. Phantasmagoria— / where
we have met before / or after? / In penance / in tendrils / of fire, bees’
gold incantations / we witnessed / his smoke-breath / incensing his skull
emerging. My glory / of not groaning when / I released him / my seafern
hand / hymnbook / that stillness / cracked / his voice box / he / parting.

A 2017 NJ Council on the Arts poetry fellow, Nicole Rollender is the author of the poetry collection, Louder Than Everything You Love (Five Oaks Press), and four poetry chapbooks. She has won poetry prizes from Palette Poetry, Gigantic Sequins, CALYX Journal and Ruminate Magazine. Her work appears in Alaska Quarterly Review, Best New Poets, Ninth Letter, Puerto del Sol, Salt Hill Journal and West Branch, among many other journals. Nicole holds an MFA from the Pennsylvania State University. She’s also co-founder and CEO of Strand Writing Services. Visit her online: www.nicolemrollender.com.