Like this not thisLike false echoPhantom limbLike tickLike eyelid tickingNot thisLike grain like siloLike slopeLike augerLike this not thisLike slum cake muldoonLike thisLike plasterLike tickLike swallowLike heartbeatLike pulseLike violetVioletViolet Image: Dominik Scythe on Unsplash
i read The Ocean, once, it was enough. i scratched its name — your name on a napkin and wiped my mouth — your mouth mouth for a table eye for a cleat hand through a window dog in the street like pavement […]
It is down to small gestures:a forefinger lift from the wheel of a passing car,a glance and shallow grin, deepon a sunlit face,a hesitant wave, waist high,from a woman never met,tending roses. Image: Akira Hojo on Unsplash
It’s that black-eyed farmhouse —foursquare and stone,down by the silo, half-chumped,at the butt end of a stubbed out town,just north of the brashlight interchange,north of the hotels, north of the pumps,ticking like stocks, like futures,southbound, transient, flashed all dayas burgers and bets, as cordwood —five dollars a bundle — that mocksall chips stacked against ruin. […]
One cannot simply climb a tree.First, you must leave the ground.You think it such a simple thing —to deny your feet, deny the suretyof sole and soil — put faith In a crest known only to the hands,the bicep, the hip, rapt kneesas the limbs go slim, precarious,pensive at the joint? And what greater fear […]
PrefaceShe Denies a Killing as Faith PresumesAnd the Old Dogs DieThree Books and a ShadowOn the Tower Overlooking the ChurchyardMigration and Other Foul WindsIn the Gamble of SavageryUpturn Cans as Vandals Sack RomeLike Emeralds in a Steel MillA Transplant / A PiningThe Vibration of LiliesAs All the Black Suns SpinIn the Tedium of BallisticsAnd Another […]
Salt,like a womblike half a woundcakedaround a guttedscaled salmon. And salmon,the red half of living,caked in salt,downriver,down oven, before the claw,before the causeway,before the rare preferredflake. And flake,crystalline,salt and hard water,fleshtender as forksmisguidanceand salvation. Image: Saskia T. on Unsplash
