Tenderness wrestles with taboo in “The Sin of a Son,” Innas Tsuroiya‘s  evocative poem from our Winter 2016 issue.

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SAVORING; HIS UNFLEDGED SKIN very squelchy by day

                                                                                                                            very pixilated by night

yours truly longed for soaking in there before dawn lit

and craved for an ostinato after dusk set

 

                    —we danced together as we melted

                    had the disarray sheet been plucked from our bed

he was that green and sweaty, so baby-like

could have been rakishly trapped in silky spider web

if I ever left him alone in the cruel sphere of tropical woods

in the search of a lost father and an unborn sister

 

but then he remembered my womb as the warmest place ever

so he cried in my left arm and snuggled into my right nipple

                    —whispered he, you look like a virgin, while viciously switching direction

                    to vice versa, compelling the storm to crash inside his body

he knew his innocuous eyes had tricked me into

                                                                                                            beguiling solicitation;

the coldest hell housing our sweet wrong

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INNAS TSUROIYA is a law school sophomore by day, pseudo-nocturnal animal by night, tweeting random stuffs on @innazous in between. She is currently residing in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, where she writes for some journals/publications and sometimes volunteers for issues she cares about.