The 2River View 19.2 (Winter 2015)
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Rajiv Mohabir

Blowhole

I trace your
passing on a skin mark, that
spot you left, a memento,

god-trance
of turned up surf.

Your salt, a vesper whispered
through sooted nostrils,
a sooth said: Fuck.

Cunt. Yet
fecund. And come. Anoint

my hollow with just the tip.
A cross in coconut oil

on your fingers and spread
on my lips that crack like whips or
wisps of voice in scream

as I risk drowning.

My head a hydra,
prepare to empty over and

to be overrun.

Museum

Someone opened the graveyard’s
door. A breeze scrimshaw—
scratches the halls.

Grey. Ash.

Cetacean
ghosts soldered into snuff mulls
with silver lining.

On your bones
I draw me
stabbing

your lungs until you spit fire.

Should I hang
your milk-spit frame from rafters

for fathers to point out
masculinity to adventure-eyed sons,
naked under death

etchings, stirred to plunder
by the leaf-rattle of a desecrated temple?

It’s time
to staff the scarscore,

to cast new gods
of bone

and gore.

Rajiv Mohabir is the winner of the 2014 Intro Prize by Four Way Books for The Taxidermist’s Cut (Spring 2016). He received his MFA from Queens College and is currently pursuing his PhD from the University of Hawai`i. contactblog

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