Poems by Josh Vigil

In which we take a virtual sewing class

I line buttons across my spine,            and beg him to thread the needle,          to sew them like fine hairs crossed.         I blow a kiss where the pin pricks,     make a wish for the ditch to stretch.         I hammer gems against pocked skin,   pits now filled with precious stones.        I glimmer under his gentle light,             fat sweat drops along stiff chests.            I tell him to hurry, I want to be covered by day’s end, I say leave no trough bare. xx

I no longer crave the monastic life

Into the air, I raise the whip, let it descend onto lush exteriors. Your portrait pocked by hot marks, my King. I envy the red velvet interiors of your mouth. I wish to lick you. Thumbing pleather with my happy palms, I imagine a waterfall  erupting from my mouth as the room fills by showers of saliva. Drooling, I pity myself mostly.

Sometimes can-do girls can’t

He slings his provoking poise like bushels of bonbons  off a bomber, fills me  with sickly lust.  His chest arranged  to rouse hunger,  mine visible to incite  pity. I feel an oppression  in the heart, one of desire like arteries being squeezed  empty: a tensile tube of toothpaste.  It’s really a terrible thing,  a heart. And yet, I ache  for this brief dalliance that I know will only become wasted  by my honeyed expectations.  In the meantime, cracking marigolds  with my clean thumb.

Josh Vigil is a writer living in New York. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Blush, Expat Press, Full Stop, Neutral Spaces Magazine, Rejection Letters, and elsewhere.