ᗷ€ŇⒺ𝐕ⓄĻ乇𝕟𝒸є

I wax your poetic thigh gap a lethal syringe
or a half-covered nipple image too riveting
from hair curation work calls to hard distraction

You’re looking stretched and exhausted in your stories
There is tension in two bodies never release & watch
You speak fluent mommy-baby American slip

Zip down some more imagery! A poem
Not here to be caught, it’s all for show
And that makes it crucial

𝕓𝐞𝔫𝐄𝐯𝕆𝔩Ẹ𝐍ςẸ

you’re always naked you’re always under
your sheets is it the world outside
a satin feel on your nipple or the hand that slips
from protection curling for surfaces
my head dives first in the image of a hand
raised up to press release bubbles of air
drawn closer to the bottom with the rays
scampering their fangs in wave of sand
a memory of terrible ghosts rippled above
closer, looser than they appear warmer
I don’t come up for air just to look at your face

𝔹𝑒η𝔢𝓿ᵒ𝓵εⓃςέ

after J.G. Ballard

A list of things I love in your mouth
Thumbed and redux’d to include a world
Of charming motorways we are polluted with birds
—Confidence of the loon!

My obsession for praxis in peaceful submerged forest
Deserted the beach, Enlisted the elegance of some
Empty lots and graveyards, The abandon hotel runway

All abolitionists inside for your imagination
Tore down the chromium foliage of an AI counter
What’s their warm tolerance if we die tomorrow
Exhausted of time in search for a new time
Smile-in the autoroute and tired eyes in posture
An excellent evil sweet camera smell

I believe in the next five minutes
And the impossible existence
Flight, beauty of the wing & repetitive
In the oil stain
And I believe in pain.

Léon Pradeau is the founding editor of Transat', a journal of poetry in French and English. He's published a few books of poetry and translation in both languages, most recently Cécile Mainardi's 'Superliquid Water', translated with cj nizard (PRROBLEM, 2026). He lives in Chicago.