Michael Carter

SELF PORTRAIT OF A SELF PORTRAIT

Colorblind the sky’s turned
the color of wet newspaper
while a serration of trees
incise the horizon, the day
caught in the jaw of morning
a rabbit in the dog’s maw
slack and warm. I’m always
naked under my clothes
fleshed as Lucian Freud’s
whippets. Mouth like an orchid
vowels and consonants trembling
in the breeze. Mouth like an orchard
apples rotting at the root, swarmed
with hornets.

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