*

The terror of vomiting
in an angel’s wig
I wish you would close your eyes
it feels like dried birds or a cat’s
being pulled over my face
the sound of a hammer
of an ear through hair an ear
attached to the shirt collar
so ear so near soft, colorless
and now the sound has stopped
hasn’t it
it’s petrifying
when the beast closest to my ear
is making his tongue a
U.

*

I want to place a name
silently near the root
of your sore
tongue a tongue
looking like a tongue
I’m watching your words
behind glass in a mouth
in
through the face
out
through the mirror
today I fell in love
with the skewness of a shelf
your finger language
and voices from the geese
the delicate and fragile unrest
in the textures of your mouth
shine
shinier
shiniest.

*

Protecting a dreamer from her dream
one-eye-glazed
one eyed, not empty
no innocence is innocent
lip-read
my almost horizontal yes
and don’t confuse red with red
there are:
reds
other reds and
other people’s reds
my safe word
is in my mouth
it is
always
a blind spot
and desire is wide open
while I watch your hands
resembling the face
of an animal, a blind infant
up- and downscaling
is a rather erotic experience.

*

I am more hungry
than sweet
but
these are just my eyes
my mouth a stingray
tongue-written, circular
from left to round
walls are breathing too
I wish you a hand
I wish we could sit all day
just making hands
we are also hands making hands
we are also hands making catastrophes
your hysteria, my bracelet
made of a forefinger and a thumb
your fingers are dissolving
my wrists
and after fever comes spring.

*

zwer
zwer
everything contains a natural activity
oily like a sun and chaos
according to the myths
I was born here
as early as an eye
the gap the doubt the eyelid lowering
too vulnerable for symmetry
too new for spring
my mouth is
a heart in
your ear
I am singing poison
we call it convulsions
don’t we
cliché is just a sound
and I know
that you know that
what happened never happened
almost is very powerful.

---

Line Toftsø is a Danish poet and artist. Published ‘Jeg bevæger kun øjnene’ (‘I Am Only Moving My Eyes’) in 2015. Lives in Copenhagen, tweets @linetofts