En Dedans

Hello jest, hello sultry
Mid-eve, hello toy
Veil on display : Offer
To be offered. I beg you

Don’t bother this blush
-Breasted finch at paralysis
On my faintly pounding
Wrist. It will swell

Paranoid. Motion to mauve
My chamber doors. Call me hardly
Merely. Call me an intelligent
Pile of yarn that yelps

At your touch, constricts
Immediate. Fasten me ankle
-Wise. Descend us
Into your waltzing

Traipse. O Honeyed— Spangled
—O Delude! And then —
Temper. My throat fat with
Hum heartbeats this cotton

Collar, threatens it agape,
Your finch to rustle in

Frances Revel Eckensberger lives in coastal Delaware. She holds an MFA in poetry from Cornell University. Her poems have appeared in Tammy, Bennington Review, and The Iowa Review, among others.