Muzzle

Devon Walker-Figueroa

I don’t give a fig that you’ve a mind                       to leer

at me with each         breath I make, each Freudian

slip and nod to Lear.

 

The local mime wants me                 to schedule the end

of appetite with her

twin, a gifted hypnotist who lives                   on Rue Feere.

 

Is it callous to give           birth when Earth seems hell-

bent on its rendezvous with       malady? Please, lend a new ear.

 

There’s a wolf out back who hunts     the sprinkler, forgets

he’s on a list of what we’re running

low on, along                  with muzzles, plums, and Laru gear.

 

I’m trying not to take up more than my portion of air,

but I can’t quit squalling—Figueroa,

Figueroa—my nom-du-père.

Devon Walker-Figueroa, a recent graduate of The Iowa Writers’ Workshop, currently lives in New York City, where she serves as co-founding editor of Horsethief Books. Her poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in The American Poetry Review, The New England Review, The Harvard Advocate, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Narrative Magazine. You can find her online at www.devonwalkerfigueroa.com.