CONTAMINANT
Vultures circle our two-bedroom. They
smell the bile; the rosemary too has
been soaking the sickness out of you
You’re poisoning the leaves. Who wants
to hear you retch? Your mother’s gone.
Who will cook for you now? Who wants
to touch a hollow body, your flesh a stretch
of cracked highway, no traffic lights and
all caresses feel like buzzards, all embraces
a truck to roadkill you against the asphalt of
your desk. What’s left but the festering?
Who would want to kiss your severed
neck? Carrion birds, every single one.

Hershel Burgh is a queer, Jewish trans man based out of Northwest Arkansas.  He lives with his partner in a one bedroom apartment that has no drawers and one cat.