On the Cover of Rolling Stone - Mackenzie Goodwin

On the Cover of Rolling Stone

In the dark
I wake to the electric orange of your cigarette hovering
An inch above my face
The purple black vineyard of alveoli in your lungs
Pressing cold, sore blood up underneath
The tattoos you etched on your own skin
After Desert Storm

Swollen singular lines no my fingertips
Speak a dozen words
As your twin daughters smile limpidly at me from their frame
You bare your wolf’s teeth, the worst I’ve seen this side of Appalachia –
And grin – a dull, disfigured warmth from the unclothed florescent lights
Vibrates, as wrinkles, like curtains on a Vaudeville stage draw open, obsolete –

In the distance, I perceive the snares of a bass drum insinuating unnaturally into the side of my neck…