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Clara Collins

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Prey

 

I thought nothing of the spider

trapped three days beneath my drinking glass,

 

its slim legs running an endless loop

until two of eight were broken and it was still

 

and twisted: catching the lip

of my cup when I lifted from above, released

 

too late. Its shroud of dust, disturbed

slightly by its quiet dying,

 

perhaps contained my skin––the remains

of my own wickedness. I crushed its head

 

in a paper napkin, tried to shed

the curl of its protective smallness

 

and the heat of my own shame, though I couldn’t

believe, completely, in its pain

 

until that August when a man whose love I wanted

led me to the woods and bent me small

 

on cracked earth, filled my open mouth. I trusted

him to know my humanness

 

though his shoving made me choke

and his hand plunged rough

 

inside the neckline of my shirt to squeeze

the flesh there. Only as I wiped his remains away

 

with the gritty backside

of my arm, did I feel the absence

 

in his gaze, understand:

I, too, am only a body squirming.

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Disclosure

 

A pellet gun paralyzed starlings’

star-shaped bodies, dropped them from the flat gray

sky to quiver softly in the dirt. He said

they were invasive, watched them undulate

against the dimming light in union moon-dance,

reeling like dark reams of paper flung

into the air. The dust he kicked up killing them

disappeared the flashing of their throats.

Stiffening, they might have

looked like thick brown leaves

held in his arms. His boyish voice

was steady as he piled them up, easy

 

as when he tells me how he shot them––

lying with his head against my abdomen,

his heavy body splitting my legs open,

his weight and warmth as solid as his silence.

I watch the lifting of his breath

and press my palm against

the undulations of his skull, believing

they could reveal some sign of goodness

or regret. All night I sleep curled

against the wall, dream of little bodies

exposed and swirling through the dusky light.

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Wanting to Want

 

Winglike, it spreads beneath skin,

a hidden sparrow fluttering

at the right touch. Its blood rush

should not leave me ragged,

should not remind of rape.

 

I am held gently and I imagine

the fan of feathers spreading, the twist

of nerve endings unfurled

in pleasure’s thin filaments. He asks me

what I want, and if my want was winged,

 

then my pleasing should be easy

when softly he presses me

to the mattress, but when I arch,

I play the wanting. I let hands fall open,

my eyes find the birds that dive and rise

 

outside my window, learning flight.

If it is a bird between my thighs,

it must be very cold or clipped at the wings,

though I’ve dreamt of my still body

touched, passed between hands

 

like an object. Desire slips

over, feather-soft, ephemeral

though I want to grip it

by the neck, map the instinct

of its movements before it flits

 

away. He pushes my body

into sweaty blankets, pins

my arms above my head––

the sparrow in my pubic bone

stirs beneath that touch.

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Clara Collins is a poet and teacher located in Bellingham, Washington. She has an MFA from The University of Oregon and her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Ninth Letter, Ellipsis, Radar Poetry, Lucky Jefferson, Poetry South, and elsewhere. She is currently working on her first collection.

© Bicoastal Review 2025. All rights reserved.

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