Three Tanka by James Maughn

turn around your ring:
men with identical hands
quarantine what light
by unjewelled mouths I touch
dew inside your suspect thighs

ending w/ a line from huerta

the projectors teeth
stitch two rows of matching smiles
fitting absences
last of what animates me
a fragment of my demise

vocabulary (a diptych)

another       language
sways       to cracks
her           voice
mortars     words
fill            her cupped
back         scraped
to your      foundation
stones       and her
ankle       turns
you        out

James Maughn