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Josh Moore South Dakota Poem
Katie’s ribs pressed against her skin,
the sharp angles of a body once soft.
She lifted her blouse, let me see—
the stubs, the little bumps,
two perfect incisions smooth as marble.
I swallowed.
Physically lubricious—I couldn’t do it.
Her perfume fought the chemo stench.
Coiffed mascara, a careful face,
a practiced smile, teeth too straight.
She asked if I still wrote poetry.
I said nothing.
Once, she stretched across the hood of my car,
blonde roots peeking through red box dye,
sipping melted ice from a gas station cup,
her freckles a map I traced in secret.
She could talk for hours,
a queen without a kingdom.
She whispered after the hysterectomy,
baby gravy’s got nowhere to go.
No need for rubber—
I trust you.
I left the room, shame humming in my jaw,
the sound of her voice stuck in my teeth.
Later, I cried.
Copyright © Josh Moore South Dakota | Year Posted 2025
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Josh Moore South Dakota Poem
Four faces
ten cows
40 people
a river runs through it
Aberdeen Rapid City Sioux Falls
crops of corn soybeans
hog factory ethanol highway interstate
flat plains shadow of Rockies
sparse vast country music cowboy hats
pickups tractors American flag whackos
jacks coyotes
buffalo paddlefish grasshoppers deer crows
vulture walleye pheasants otters cattle grain
green sky derecho buffalo
ghost towns railroad
Homestake mine caves peaks
tribes pioneers reservation farms
million Big Siouxland
crickets chirp
plains old west
motorcycle rally August
blizzard snow hot humid
Copyright © Josh Moore South Dakota | Year Posted 2025
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Josh Moore South Dakota Poem
Cheap ale pools in a Styrofoam cup.
She’s barefoot in gravel,
anklet flashing beneath the floodlamps.
Pickup window ajar, radio blaring
“Friends in Low Places.”
Her jeans slung low,
hips marbled violet on the porch-swing,
ash winnowing across her thighs
from last night’s guttering fire.
I watch the buttes flatten at gloaming,
a silo blinking red—
a wound stitched into the earth.
She speaks of leaving at firstlight.
I say nothing,
fingers tracing the stubs of dead cigarettes
between her knuckles.
Coyotes keen beyond the barbed-wire.
The stars loom Pendulous
We do not lift our gaze.
Copyright © Josh Moore South Dakota | Year Posted 2025
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Josh Moore South Dakota Poem
Till our sun falls from the sky
The weather was frigid or she was,
reminiscing daydreams convulsed May.
Gray Dodge Omni parents backyard,
baseball players in a hotel room.
Graduate weed university age 16,
Stoned in the coffee shop,
high at the state speech tournament,
Ginsberg foggy and oblique,
country music radios.
Copyright © Josh Moore South Dakota | Year Posted 2025
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Josh Moore South Dakota Poem
Her shocks poured forth like a midnight oil spill,
body buckling like a sapling in a tornado, cracked like a Grecian museum urn. Moonflower extended limb petals, hips arched, limbs touched the nightfall floor. Her firehouse quaked primal.
Waistline oscillated, packed rigid. Gasps defibrillated, beasts fought through tight ribs,
Midriff dilated, injected, probe swelled with force.
Her breath hung heavy, smoke in a chimney,
Drumbeats drumming on her global map, sweat beaded like molten glass.
Weary rasps of elation caterwauling,
guttural sounds spilled from her chest.
Copyright © Josh Moore South Dakota | Year Posted 2025
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Josh Moore South Dakota Poem
Leather boots and belts,
A maiden’s lipstick,
Handcuffs, lace panties bra,
Sword slave,
Wash muzzle,
Plug Tongue,
Eel slime plum,
Snail, tornado, bones, antlers, hands.
Razor clam ***** dug tunnel,
Cucumber purr kitty.
Brine volcano mussel worm plank,
Brassiere blaze twirl shell,
Palm girdle underwear, boot panty boars, hand Dug pussy thermometer!
Scream spank shout!
Kettle strap!!
Steam lung pulse!!!
******** morgue eating crucifix breakfast?
Copyright © Josh Moore South Dakota | Year Posted 2025
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Josh Moore South Dakota Poem
Streetlight dander. Jawbone asphalt.
Blink razors carve her iris script.
Rib stars ovulate in feral grates,
mechanical tongue juts a bloodline breath.
Keystroke ruin writes in collapse,
a waveform lodged in sternum glass.
Lipsticked rodeo—a gash in faded denim
Banana-knuckled hands torch filterless ghosts.
Tree-call through copper root systems.
Wire-pluck storm,
vapor chews the stock market
Cancer caught in molar hush,
brined in citrine static.
She opens her throat like a coin purse.
Spine bows in semaphore.
We dismount the edge—
An incisor cusp,
the confession still blistering
beneath the flesh of no language.
Copyright © Josh Moore South Dakota | Year Posted 2025
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Josh Moore South Dakota Poem
Wedding dress rides bicycle.
She cracked ribs staring in my window.
Crocodile teardrops jail cell.
Peat shale lignite.
Venus squaw bean.
Police car mother death.
Late September,
Drugstore beads. sandalwood.
Copyright © Josh Moore South Dakota | Year Posted 2025
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Josh Moore South Dakota Poem
Stand cold 3 AM on work line, slighted, famished, impoverished, vanished, faded, hungry.
Long walk down Cliff Avenue hill, US Highway, dissecting sides of Sioux.
Hard day labor, sex offenders, hardened convict, roll down production line.
Here I am, college degree, communication binge drink, division one university in Brookings, America.
Capanelle visible 15 miles north on 90.
Piece work calendars, and walking after George Floyd in Sioux Falls.
A night of gunshots, shots.
Riot at Empire Mall, stolen rifles, gun store Grange Avenue.
Tires littered Otter River, drought, water under a foot.
The cool breeze paints Josh Moore, tobacco papers, comic book background.
Federal courthouse a mile south, lady judge United States.
“Born in the USA.”
Copyright © Josh Moore South Dakota | Year Posted 2025
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Josh Moore South Dakota Poem
Bubbles confabulated,
Aquamarine rosary beads,
Steel-blue beams.
Americana scarecrow,
Cherry-red combine.
Lost Highway,
A road to the car dealership,
Back on the interstate.
Campanile, Brookings.
Brick courthouse, marriage license.
Curvy fairytales,
Gluten-free supper,
Phillips Diner.
Sioux Falls railroads,
Sewage floating in the river,
All in view—
On the Cliff Avenue hill,
Of the obsolete penitentiary.
Converged coalescence—
South Dakota State women win March Madness,
A retired federal chief district lesbian judge,
Her hands clapping in the stands of the Premier Center.
Copyright © Josh Moore South Dakota | Year Posted 2025
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