Mikal Wix

Red Observatory

I have listened to car horns clash 
like rams, offered to feed the orphan 

dogs of Pompeii, slept under summer 
skies to escape him, spoken to police 

about candescent bruises, appealed 
for children on the opposite bank, run 

deserts to interrogate derelict tongues.
I have put surveillance cameras out

to rescue him, to launch a plan to end 
this excavation of debris found on 

afternoon sheets, on other men’s lips
moving over my body until I am full, 

no way to confuse the windshield
with the force of being flung like a disk 

upon a four-poster bed because a love 
I love him for will hurt me more, more

than the battering chorus of druthers 
in my head, if not for my rearview

mirror, and the signals to panic now
seen in the eyes of strange doormen.

I have walked out and into the dark.
I have never felt so close to myself.

Mikal Wix is a Queer poet, literary worker, and biomedical editor. His poetry has been featured in many journals and presses, such as Pleiades Press, North American Review, Sonora Review, River Heron Review, Portland Review, and Pinch Journal. His published work can be found at https://linktr.ee/mikalwix.