Wolf-Sense Sonnet
by Okla Elliott
I will walk you through the desert, all wolf-
wolf and blood-sandy paws. O smooth rapture
of elegant neck—O underwear hanging
on comic cactus—water-plant, prick-plant
of need. I will lead you through strange danger,
one million nights of apocalyptic lust.
Gone giddy, I’ll lick lasciviously
your Lilith lips, lunge, leap, and lie back down.
What am I saying? All sense has left me.
There’s a zero at the bottom of this pit.
There’s a note of desert music in us.
There’s no need of sense, only our senses.
You will walk me wolfily into new need,
and our oasic images will mirror-mirage.
***
This poem was previously published in South Dakota Review.
Like this:
Like Loading...
About Okla Elliott
Okla Elliott is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Illinois, where he works in the fields of comparative literature and trauma studies. He also holds an MFA in creative writing from Ohio State University. His non-fiction, poetry, short fiction, and translations have appeared in Another Chicago Magazine, Indiana Review, The Literary Review, The Los Angeles Review, New Letters, A Public Space, and The Southeast Review, among many others. He is the author of a full-length collection of short fiction, From the Crooked Timber, and three poetry chapbooks—The Mutable Wheel; Lucid Bodies and Other Poems; and A Vulgar Geography. His po-mo/sci-fi novel The Doors You Mark Are Your Own, co-written with Raul Clement, is forthcoming in 2014.
