Kerry Cox

Cotton Mouth ..
Now I wish that snake
hadn’t bitten you, that you hadn’t
told me what you really wanted
I’ll keep the time we rode the ferris wheel drunk
and forget your blank eyes
when we kissed.
I wish you hadn’t had to be
rolled up in a carpet, smuggled
onto a boat, that you were the one naked
when room service arrived.
I wish you kept your dignity and
your wisdom, never running off
with a gunshot gr**go into
the night.
in stone, your mouth is so pretty
I imagine our own history differently, how
much we miss our own mothers, someone to brush
our long dark tangled hair. Our laughing
daughters immune to the tides
that kept pulling us under.
but we couldn’t die, plain
in dust. Couldn’t let time take its course,
wouldn’t be looked upon
as wounded, all these mothers of magic
who bore us whole and hovering.
reborn as river, flooding
a new mythology, amongst
our alligators and dark mud
slapping against silvered wood
where we celebrated
our independence
in sideways glances
and scarred stomachs
before separating
into lonely streams.
I still wish that snake
hadn’t bitten you, that you hadn’t
told me what you really wanted
I’ll keep the time we rode the ferris wheel drunk
and forget your blank eyes
when we kissed.

What started as a little moss experiment is turning into something much bigger.

Moss Mom Gardens is building real momentum — and this year I’ve been accepted into Seattle Erotic Art Festival as both a visual artist and a literary artist.

Living moss sculpture on the walls.
Live readings in the room.

From gothic exhibition halls to rooftop wonderlands to winter fairgrounds, the moss is traveling — and the poems are coming with it.

I love when worlds start to overlap.

If you’ve been watching this grow from the beginning… thank you.
If you’re new here… come see what’s happening.

From Poetry Exchange on the prompt of 🧚‍♀️

The Infinity Theorem (Proof by Denial)

I’ve got these thoughts just swirling around—
From here, how do I get off the ground
when I’m so weighted down
by all the sound
of all the voices in my ears,
laughing, jeering, calling me clown.

I’m not an angry wave.
I’m not a peaceful dove.
I’m something in between.
I’m something way above.

Swaying from the back,
weighted down by the force
of something not like gravity—
a different kind of chorus.

Held like secrets
in the quantum physics
of four ventricles gone wild.

And that’s the way it happens
when you start counting by the miles—
every inch an acre,
eight tentacles of denial.

Happy birthday, Queen Toni!! 🙏❤️