Settlement
Joey De Jesus

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I’m his utopia, his burrowed, his bulk,
a sleeping inlet of encounter and spine weight,

known by hunger, the tongue’s critique sours
a compendium of mouths opening.

If shore is a matter of need, then permit
my glad-handing this auric cassava and cane.

If heart is an army, then I am an island
filched, the palm burning after thunderclap.

Straw mattress has been hard on his back;
my lover, he wants to learn from me Spanish:

I say, prende la luz as in, turn on the light
from the Latin prehendere: to seize, to take.