Window, and: I learn to lick

Window, and: I learn to lick Sara Ellen Fowler (bio) Window The horizon measures itself in stillness. The fennel's coming through in the dark. Linseed oil carries on the draft from the unscreened window, west-facing little message of trust. My canvases fain shudder in the temperature like a horse's rippling will. I believe in the horizon only. O, let me be hulled in it. A mixed pulse, a wash of, I take the pills: silent dress circle of what care I need to keep painting here. The coffee's ready. And my loneliness fess no milk but patience. For the white-throated swift will call across the sagebrush. I am listening with my skin for her. Were it my steady line gathering definition in the morning purple grey, and gratitude its own prism, we could sit the hour and watch the light break the face of the high desert. End Page 47 I learn to lick I learn to lick your spit off a pane of mirrored glassand spit again,grateful. My seizingthroat and watering mouth, my desire to please, my desireto be seen: prill giftfor you,my teacher. The crush tacks with lust until my breath is a gauze of asking for it. Lightproof and no fingerprints. No email thread. Kind of blessed—Yes, dip and bow and dismember.I have no eyes, I have only a mouth. End Page 48 Sara Ellen Fowler Sara Ellen Fowler's writing can be found in The Offing, X-TRA Contemporary Art Journal, and Gigantic Sequins, among others. Her first book, Two Signatures, was chosen by Joan Naviyuk Kane for the 2023 Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize and will be published by the University of Utah Press in 2024. Copyright © 2024 University of Wisconsin Board of Regents