a home for homeless literature
Part of a suite of poems called "The Shift" about travelling the 401
i am pulling my bodies from you. tin scales flaking. the coddled effort of your skin still on me. still flapping between fingers. patching joints and hollows. cracks elbows. webs us to evening. a sleeping hand occasionally between my shoulders. the vanishing. point. of my skin and your shadow body. between copper salted fingers. tell me
i am pulling my bodies from you. tin scales flaking. the coddled effort of your skin still on me. still flapping between fingers. patching joints and hollows. cracks elbows. webs us to evening. a sleeping hand occasionally between my shoulders. the vanishing. point. of my skin and your shadow body. between copper salted fingers. tell me
what if
i find a stone to rub against. slough you off. these water broken rocks. revised. by the rub rub of my limbs rawing. smoothing cool mineral. clip aloe for the ooze of it and paint over the missing skin. leave. you still sucking milk from limestone. ripped of sweated flesh. you are cut out. the tender incision of a key through a key hole. until
this lifting
thickens our heals. we are sideways walkers. among the shale of highways. pinching our skin to other bodies. knitted now. to other pores. leaking over suckled blemishes. scraping one from one. until the pumice snows our shavings to neat piles. water scented ash. you or me. forever flaying the layers. looking for the drop of blood that
unravels us
2 Responses to “Crust”
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ATOM 0.3
Like waiting against the gymnasium wall at a grade school dance.
I have to say visually this poem works very well, espicaly the use of the lines down the side (which i read as seperate from the poem, a mini poem but they work well within too). and some fantastic phrases, most notably "sideways walkers" and "slough you off". subtle violence. I don't have a whole lot of issues with the poem except maybe the one word phrases like "point" (first stanza) and "leave" mianly because I don't think those are strong enough words within the poem to give such weight too (well i could be convinced of "leave"). grand work.
I like the feeling of movement here. Good source material, by the way. Travelling the 401 is a unique experience, I think. Parts I'm not in love with: "revised." (seems like too much of an english-student moment.), "key through a key hole" (doesn't really do much. I think you can find a much more interesting way of conveying the same thing, and much more. Parts I especially love: "water scented ash" "smoothing cool mineral", "we are sideways walkers"
I don't know how useful this is, but I get a mental image of nesting dolls when I think of this, those Ukranian things where you open up the big one and there is a smaller one inside, on and on, until the teeniest possible doll is all that is left, but here I don't think that final arrival point is even available, which is good.
what if this lifting unravels us, indeed?