Remorse

1. Magnolia Tree

About now bursting into pink the way after-bite becomes itself.
Or, excuse me, do I mean afterbirth? I’m not playing—
O how lambent this rotten bubblegum soufflé & it’s apt
you installed a red light beneath your ceiling’s sole accoutrement,
one bug-stuffed glass stomach. Ladybug, did you know the light

before you felt it?

2. House Show

First of all the kind of hum so touching
& human it can only be made by machines
fluting the air like a body.

Outside the blossoms breaking as sea into foam.

Inside the sound breaking as sea into foam:
You feel it before it hits you. Yes there’s a wedge

between vein spaces one & two and I left
it open for this: if love is judgement, the drum’s chugging fits.

Tell me it’s bright enough, pulse-replacement.
Tell me I’m not still pursuing you, Mr. Real Life.

3. Teeth

The way you say escape like “excape,”
like MMMMMM you were caught in the garden
and someone (who was it? the devil?)
said no a rope of flesh this fragile can’t stand
a fricative this lilting. Too much F? I mean, definitely.

When I remember them I’ll remember X,
that vital jungle-gym, crooked tombstones
in grave taffeta, was I for a second a dentist

when you clawed me and I yelped? Fix me. Fix me. Fix me.
 
 
 
Rebecca Beauchamp is a performance poet/multimedia artist in the University of Virginia’s program in poetry writing. She is a recipient of the Wagenheim Literary Award and has works forthcoming in 491 and the Virginia Literary Review, among others. She is currently completing a sustained character-performance project entitled ‘Secret Wishes.’ Formerly @girlrebecca on instagram but deactivated “to find herself.”