Stacy Szymaszek

excerpts from Hyperglossia





he ceased

to exist as                       a boy

became                 an appellation

filed away                       embedded hairs of a chin

now hearsay of                      hyperglossia

my eyes are dyed blue

my breast









                      plate protects

                      a spool    adversary’s nail was lodged

                      in my skull             these roots          won’t work

                      said the cook                       changed the

                      valance                   spooked form

                      of panther ran





********************





he uses

                   his hands

to please her                       in the shade

                   of a sycamore

Eustace                       she authenticates

                   a Roman soldier

“uh-oh” what

                                      I thought

now etrnly wedged in
       the emphatic

via particulate

                                      pleasure

               my head                   leaks honey

on an alabaster

                                      pillow





********************





I scrub my body with a clump
of thistle       gulp juice from another bladder      holy
fool to holy writ       I posit a figure for embargo
develop commodity       this is a practice story       cough up
anterior in dust of golden lumber       masculine rhyme
used as an intensifier    Umbrian also surviving only in inscription
and within folds of pre-Roman woman       I export
I to modulate what you know Control Freak
holes in the story must be rearranged
for shee to eke out a living       formally
it’s a hutment       evident and fluent in
telegraphese       a baby talking to a bird      he wouldn’t rather
stay in a mirage       of her own touristy carnage
table pate       the only wound
permit to the panther




- Stacy Szymaszek