ALICE - SB Stokes

She had a thing for holes
didn't matter where she found them

pushing her whole body

or falling backward

embracing the darkness

Down or up didn't matter

penetrating the surface

drinking herself in

Fur turned her on

she found herself chasing

running and yelling

after bellies of rabbits

hands in the air

she was inquisitive, assertive

the kind who makes history

made a mess of this topsy

men and animals left wanting

her neck bent, her head lovely

Caught in a world

her clothes always snagging

grabbed at by thorns

the fingers of bushes

tearing at her body

or pulling her hair

Tearful and ecstatic

she found herself arguing

with strangers far too often

after drinking & smoking

for a brief time there were:

a large weepy beast,

a guy with some hats,

a stark-raging husband,

an ineffectual queen

still such a hard time

making sense of them all

A fourth generation Californian, SB Stokes has lived and worked in the San Francisco Bay Area all of his life.
He is currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry at San Francisco State University and is a former poetry and art editor for Fourteen Hills: The SFSU Review. He is a founding producer and designer for Oakland's Beast Crawl and works as a production assistant for Literary Death Match events in San Francisco.
His poems have been published in SEX+DESIGN, Gesture, Metonym, Quiet Lightning's sPARKLE & bLINK, MUST street 'zine, Occupy Wall Street Poetry Anthology, The VelRo Reader, and most recently in Saturday Night Special's Year One Anthology.