Welcome to “Poetry at The Arts Fuse.” A new poem every Thursday

Shriving

When red claps briny & thorns prick beer,
Whispering iris, kisses of salt,
Edges of lower teeth cleaning a nail,
Scraping your palms creasing taste of the fear,
Wringing the sponge by its lemony tail,
Gasping gills, porous, he thinks it’s your fault.

When blue smacks dewy & waves whack a lung,
Curling from foam soapy amorous tongue,
Swipe the stick, tamp it, it slides through your lips,
Doctrine explicit spontaneous quips,
Silk strands, spinnerets, younger-you stories,
Cutting corollas, mourning your glories,
Why to the lake of your childhood, driven?
Parents, exes, you thought you’d forgiven.

Ilan Mochari is the author of the poetry collection Playthings and the novel Zinsky the Obscure. Ilan’s poems, short stories, and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in The Cincinnati Review, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Salamander, Hobart, Solstice, and elsewhere. His work has been nominated for multiple Pushcart Prizes as well as the Derringer Award for crime fiction, and he has been the recipient of a Literature Artist Fellowship grant from the Somerville Arts Council.

Note: Hey poets! We seek submissions of excellent poetry from across the length and breadth of contemporary poetics. See submission guidelines here. The arbiter of the feature is the magazine’s poetry editor, John Mulrooney.

— Arts Fuse editor Bill Marx