Your fangs shrink back to bluntness.
The scarlet
abandons your lips for your cheeks.
When you meet with the living
you grope for their feelings, not throats.
Your laughter (unsure of their jokes)
curdles nothing.
You eat pasta with garlic.
And the people you drained
rise up and walk;
the moon signals sleep and not food.
No longer possessed—
not even by guilt—
and willingly
(clumsily)
mortal,
there is one thing you miss:
the sonar ear
heat-seeking precision
triangulation of pulse
when you flew and you knew from afar
where the heart was
–
Laura Sheahen’s poems have been published in In Posse Review, Four Way Review, Stirring, The Dark Horse, and other journals in the US and UK. She frequently travels to Tunisia and researches poetry from North Africa’s Amazigh communities.