Xeni

by Pandel Collaros

She came from a speck of zero gravity.

Red inside her lower lid,

Skin pulled down

like her slightly open mouth

which is always.

She speaks

I don't know

foreign frequency.

And what is heavier anyway—

skin or bone?

Will skin peel back

as on a boiled chicken?

Or will bone weight

pierce through metal-fatigued flesh.

Bones already white

through translucent tightness.

Her body is young but

she is old with the sins

of her sires and her sires' sires.

How did she come back to the black hole

neutron focus of her depravity?

Freak Angel,

go back to your starlet

and all will be lifted.

One must look closely

for the hairline cracks

of hope

around yellow lips.

I can smell her soul closely

          through open mouth,

through tiny cracks around her open mouth.

Screams of which I am unfamiliar

through a black hole that doesn't move.

Pandel Collaros is Professor Emeritus at Bethany College, WV, and has taught previously at The Ohio State University and the University of Kansas. He has published short fiction and poetry in The Ohio State University Lantern and Mosaic Magazine, the Bethany College Harbinger, the Steubenville Herald-Star, and the Columbus Senior Times.