Amanda Rachelle Warren

You roll them
words around. Skip them
into dark waters.
Polish them with silt
until they dissolve.
Let them run.
Sap thick
from your barely open mouth.
But you don’t ever say.
Not once. So
I press my tongue to you.
Lap it up.

Amanda Rachelle Warren’s work has appeared in Appalachian Heritage, Beloit Poetry Journal, Anderbo, Crazyhorse, Indiana Review, Pacific Review, Cimarron Review, and Hayden’s Ferry, as well as other journals. Her chapbook Ritual no.3: For the Exorcism of Ghosts, was published by Stepping Stone Press in 2011. She is the 2017 recipient of the Nickens Poetry Fellowship from the South Carolina Academy of Authors and currently works as a freelance writer and poetry pusher. She lives in Aiken, SC, with her husband, poet Roy Seeger.