unspoken love poem #6 by Maggie Rue Hess
Image by PN art intern Danielle White, @yourdanidoodles.
Associate poetry editor Heath Joseph Wooten on today’s bonus poem: This poem is as sexy and surprising as it is unexpected, lyrical, and deeply needing. Let Hess’s language teleport you to your most wanting moment—it did for me, and I’m sure it will for you.
unspoken love poem #6
This woman has me curtained—
buttons teethed into carpet rash. Tongue on stubble, stomach
thrash metallic. I whisper distance. From nipple to
navel shout electric. We scatter curfew.
Open robe and bottle, breathing her in
the door frame I salivate for thigh: deny me.
We never do. Apples and chocolate and cheap plates.
Tender as flame.
Keeping cold at bay, wrap each other grassy.
Rain drunk a mouth shaped for each silence,
painted sly. How she knew me.
Maggie Rue Hess (she/her) is a graduate student and former high school teacher living in Knoxville, Tennessee, with her partner and their two pups. Her work has appeared in Rattle, Minnesota Review, Connecticut River Review, and other publications. Outside of reading & writing, Maggie Rue enjoys pouring latte art, practicing on roller skates, and watching the leaves change colors.
Tip the poet on venmo @MaggieRWarren.
