STILL LIFE WITH JUGS
milk
meats, toots
for tots, broosts
brooding all front and off-
center, all lookie here, all croon
for the refrigerator grab, compass
for standing on the muddy kitchen floor
not knowing what you came looking for. nipple
dunes, teat treats, bosom blossoms, breasticles, sometimes
sad bags of sand. sad, because, yearning. sand, because, the sea
is calling again and i want to be more than the sum of my parts,
more than tiddies, and never titties because it’s too pointy,
too i look at you and drink you up, too i see you. i have you.
i own you. call ‘em sin sacks, for the broiling beneath
the fat, my anger quenching the streams of life
you so readily want to lap from. nips
nipping, quarktassen quelling:
you will go thirsty.

---

BETWEEN TWO SUNS
i
am just a
body!!!!!!!!!!!! purple-dappled
and gory with melting
handles like wet
clay and shadows
that peer out of my armpits
before retreating
when looked at too closely.
i am just a body made
of yearning and soft
margins that bleed
into the night, blueberry
contemplation and good working
gears whisping away like bits
of spidersilk on a tough
wind if i do not pay
close enough attention
to them: an act of revenge.
i am ! just !
a body bent,
a multitool, the cracking
butterfly wing
on the wall, the toad
in the hamper, the tupperware
without a lid.

---

Tara Labovich (They/them)
Tara Labovich is an MFAer and avid walker hanging out in Iowa. Their multi-genre work explores questions of identity, queerness, ancestry, and survivorship. Tara’s work has been published in Salt Hill and After the Pause and has been the recipient of several prizes.