Sample Poems by Kara Dorris

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Untitled Film Still # 2



In the dark I've left eyes like Picasso gears

whiskey bottle hands
ritual heart-shaped vessels

When I say left, I mean gave-

Light finds its way to us
as light should
as we should want it to

but doesn't everyone wonder how
to ask the dark to dance
with light

how to light the self
with dark?

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Untitled Film Still # 4

This discourse is like water in a vase

No truth outside the representation
the ache that-once had-sits

in silence. We sit. The blanks, burnings
of hell. In love is ever only one way

like this hotel hallway, a room service
cart empty

Condemned to be saint & monster-
the way he held the door shut

& I pressed against it anyway

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Untitled Film Still # 45



-like a yes
unexpected
to be warded against:

moth wings in lashes
the moment lungs hush

The release was in the shaking
pleading of not yet
the flutter of next
warm flush of smother

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Untitled Film Still # 147


What would we do if we lost electricity?

Let the constant dark make our eyes colder
forget how to absorb heat?

My skin, a jealous, deficient warmer
craves an excuse
to carve power-lines into licorice

Rescue sirens blare, docks & stars wreck away

What river, after straightened & channeled
would revert back?

What river wouldn't?

What body would be content
with being just another in the dark?