All in by Ashley Cline

by Ashley Cline



bring your own body. call it back from the
forest, call it up from the sea floor & watch

how the garden blooms her shipwreck tongue:
lilacs & oceans & isn’t it funny how everything

tastes of riptides this spring,
you’ll say. & the
caramel spades you’ll make of my tongue, &

the salted currents you’ll lay along the flower
bed—listen how the garden sighs with her antler

fuzz & trapper fur trimmings left somewhere
among ankles & winter & isn’t it lovely how

a hungry mouth cares for such reckless lips?
you’ll say. & the tides you’ll prune; the

shark-toothed carrots you’ll pull from their
tender-earthed home & place, gently, belly

up, in the basket perched on your feral hip.
she’ll wait for you, there, i’ll say. this body

made of bouquets & drownings & the moon’s
magnetism.
& oh, how you’ll undo my

cheeks along your palm—& watch
how easily the jaw sings of god.

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An avid introvert and full-time carbon-based life-form, Ashley Cline crash-landed in south Jersey 28 years ago and still calls that strange land home. Most often found listening to Carly Rae Jepsen, her essays on music and feelings have been published by Sound Bites Media, while her poetry has appeared in 404 Ink, Third Point Press, and Francis House.