Abomasum

 

Barn-itch & skin hollers, Boar flounders,

Buck enters, long enough to sigh—& leave.

 

Boast of the most-tender meat, Cloven-footed, incapable of moving,

Cud-swallowed, knot settles in esophagus.

 

Cull the dam & ewe, make them swoon— Farrow ‘til sweat tastes of tornado, of Oklahoma Foot-&-mouth, she hollowed out in silence.

 

Guilt syncopates in peony & loosened frost, Heifer cannot fall in love with Mule, but—

Icarus Icarus Icarus She casts charms so that he knows her.

 

Jane Doe is {Heifer, is Sow} dirt floor. Killer rushes her baseboards with an axe.

 

Low, Heifer begs to be heard,

Made home of her entrails, bathed in fatty acids—

{but} not her heart.

 

Pollard: she with no horns, no home, no folly. Quixotic.

 

Ruminate on juices running sulfuric— between legs, in veins.

 

Sow, Sow suffers in silence—

Tarries & tows, tongue unravels into a very pretty thing.

 

When years halt & xyphoid process finally gets some sleep,

you finally get some sleep,

Zodiac signs pull out heavy artillery, & we wait.

 

 

 

 

Jennifer E. Hudgens was born & raised in Oklahoma City. Jennifer is currently attending Oklahoma State University for an MFA in poetry, is editorial assistant at Cimarron Review & assistant poetry editor at Petrichor.

Jennifer likes to find new ways to write poems about road kill & witchcraft, inserting well-timed fart jokes into casual conversation, & constantly pondering on whether or not the dead watch us shower.