Smoke
(The Thundergod's Daughter)
By Jason Mott


Hung in the wet, round socket
of my lips

is a bone—a small, thin shaft,
calved from a hand

unowned—set alight. The bone’s
outer white was bleached

from Minnesota flax. Betrothed—
the marrow, the ossein

rolled their wedding bed
in Winston-Salem

one December and now I envy
this shard of hand.

I envy down to the filter as the class bell
rings. Dislocate the bone,

grind it into pavement,
exhale the marrow,

lick my lips,
alone.

Jason Mott is a graduate of the MFA program at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. He has been published in various journals, including The Kakalak Anthology of Carolina Poets, The Thomas Wolfe Review and Measure.

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