Hazal Tuncer

Asking for Everything

Nothing of this world will sound outside of me,
low-toned and holding,

wringing your strings and your scythes. Not one
vent will blow.

No self-righteous mothers will fill their sturdy shoes and you
were never full enough.

Basil and spinach washed, draining in the wire colander,
chatty as the sunburned throats
of deadheaded roses.

If I put one leg around you in the night, if I press
your hands above your head:
have you ever seen such want?

You thought I literally drained every boy’s canteen and
every last quarter and washer was mine.
My bee balm, my soft spoken, unsayable—
why look at the want you carved out in me?

Organize the chaste and manic soil. It turns and turns
like static in your skirts,
birds for your waist.
Talk it back into quietude.

— by Lilah Hegnauer