Voluptuary

Longing for a soft world
Faithful to memory
In curve with reverberation
The modesty of symmetry
Is a mealy thing
Filled with hours
Of lyric anxiety
Shivers roll through
The penitent, flapping light
The lush, unravaged
Sooty magnetism
Sultry and heavy with
Balmy palpitation


Carleen Tibbetts is the author of dossier for the postverbal (Carrion Bloom Books, 2023), DATACLYSM.jpg (White Stag, 2019), DATACLYSM.jpg (Radioactive Cloud, 2018), and to exosk(elle), the last sugar (Zoo Cake Press, 2015). Her work has appeared in TYPO, jubilat, Sink, The Pinch, The Laurel Review, Datableed, Deluge, Dreginald, and other journals. She edits poetry for Dream Pop Press.