Becki Hawkes

Hidden Teeth

Lick off the last bit
he says

and I do, though the way
it has gone cold and thick

makes me want to gag.

The word slut

is slippery, almost translucent
if you say it right

it is combed pearls
and languid curls of sea foam

it is a well-planned smile
that heats your tubes
as you muscle it out

it is a snail at night
on rain-sluiced bricks

inching its soft shape
into the smoked wet city
cell by cautious cell

scraping in moss
and shelled petals of beetle

feeding on stone

with all its hidden teeth.

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Becki Hawkes lives and works in London (UK). She has had poems published in Ink, Sweat and Tears, Rust + Moth (forthcoming), Brittle Star, Pulp Poets Press, Crow & Cross Keys (forthcoming), Little Stone Journal (forthcoming) and Trouvaille Review. Her work explores topics such as disordered eating, surviving abusive relationships and sexual assault, our relationship with animals and the natural world, and the experience of losing loved ones to dementia. Twitter: @BeckiH_678