Layla Benitez-James

CEILING HUNG OVER THE ROOM

I am going
boar hunting across
the ceiling.

Bright and early
the hairs of the dogs
are ready and raised—

I want one bird
to stay, still in the day
the sky is still

layered with bleached prisms—
folded cellophane,
laud of my eyes—

loud in them. Lord, I want
the black boar to say what it means
but it means too many things

and we’re closing in.
The flies begin to stretch
their calf muscles;

my eyes have not yet begun
to get winded; the boar
stops his flight and turns.

LAYLA BENITEZ-JAMES lives in Alicante, Spain. Her first chapbook, God Suspected My Heart Was a Geode but He Had to Make Sure, was selected by Major Jackson for the 2017 Toi Derricotte & Cornelius Eady Chapbook Prize and published by Jai-Alai Books in Miami. Other work can be found in Acentos Review, Asymptote Journal, and The London Magazine.