Tess Matukonis

Tess Matukonis

Tess Matukonis lives in Charlottesville, VA. Her poetry has appeared in Cult. Magazine, Streetlight Magazine and Creation Magazine.

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Creation Myth

My appetite returns after you left me and it’s fried

chicken I crave. It's at the gas station, blistered as Death Valley, 

it glistens in the grocery store under illicit incandescence. 

I shove it all in. Rococo breading crumbles like sandstone 

between my teeth. Wet tendons gleam and clench my fingers.

This batter suffocates all memory, grounding it.

After believing I’d never eat again, I savor an occupied

mouth. Will I start to take for granted each roadside

diner's infinite thighs, hot and ready, all by swiping

my card and grabbing napkins for the aftermath?

Do I question the hunger for anything outside of myself?

I lay the naked bones into the garbage can, begin to digest

that which always circles, wipe the grease from the blackhole.

I look down and realize my jean shorts no longer button.