TABI’S FLASH TUESDAYS
Happy Tuesday!
5.7.24
a chain across the lips - C. C. Rayne
which quiets and limits and gently clicks,
bright metal against toothy bone
his mouth opening ever so slightly
for inhale of breath, closing again.
the same way you would shut up a door
with a too-short length,
interlocked in a long handshake hang
that stretches the skin taut
not a word has crossed his tongue, love or hate or fear,
or if it has we wouldn’t know
for it would never hear the light of day.
gold metal gleams, sunk into flesh of cupid’s bow,
down through muscle cartilage
scabbed over, for years now. and still, someday
he hopes to speak.
C. C. Rayne is a writer, actor, creator whose work blends the silly and strange, the magic and mundane. C. C's stories can be read in The Deeps, The Razor, HAD, and Sublunary Review. C. C.'s poetry can be found in Soft Star Magazine, Eye to the Telescope, and moth eaten mag.