Korbin Jones
meaning revelation or unveiling.
the air’s sole purpose: to fuel the roaring that tumbles down
the mountainside. yet the parrotlet can still be heard, so we stop
our running. turn and face this wall of flames. listen to the peeling
of organs, of meat from corpse by vultures: homeless, too—
and starving, pecking at the blisters on my arms, my ashened hair,
at the holes in my jeans, my tender knees. we lie down. tear off
our soot-covered clothes so we can lie in its path. moaning with
the blaze, licking one another as the flames lick us, too, stealing flesh
from bone until we are just two skeletons rattling in a mockery of sex.
this is nothing new to us. the vultures have long gone, and we
are consumed by the end—only fragments remaining.
Korbin Jones is the author of the poetry collection songs for the long night (QueerMojo, April 2019), and the translator from the Spanish of SFO: Pictures and Poetry about San Francisco, a book of poems by Pablo Luque Pinilla with photographs by Jose Luis R. Torrego (Tolsun Books, 2019). His poems, short stories, and personal essays have appeared in a number of journals. Jones graduated from Northwest Missouri State University with degrees in writing/publishing and in Spanish, and is currently pursuing his MFA in Poetry at the University of Kansas. He works as editor-in-chief and head designer for Fearsome Critters: A Millennial Arts Journal.
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