Dragged from the sunset
So cleanly I wish I had claws
To dig in to the horizon,
Or for the train windows
To lose their glass
So the wind can teethe a goodbye out of me.
The land writhes against gravity
To warm its skin
On the last embers of winter sun
Sprawled across the clouds
Like red hair tangled through bedsheets:
The weekend rolled up into a tight absence
Coiled inside my lips.
Sunlight on my sickbed,
Restlessness of morning
Nuzzling me awake,
Licking my eyelids warm.
Face down drawing in bed,
Used tissues: belly-up beetles
Waving legs.
Juno soundtrack, record crackle
With my throat infection
Attempts to sing along.
Catching afternoon sun between my toes.
Composing cards, playlists and pictures
To post the distance
Strung across our skulls
Fairy-lit bridges.
I sneeze the sun from the sky
And it coughs out snow.
Rush to open window,
Feverish cold,
Outstretched palm:
Melting into goose-bumps and guilessness
Garden green catching the wet on its leaves/tongues with me.
Spores, Ohmu,
Spring morning snow;
The strange, fatal beautiful.
Global warming, toxic forests, separation
Platform for days
To keep us grateful.
Miles above
Lights
Floating beneath the night-
The city;
A phosphorous shoreline.
The darks cold
Kisses
On our pink cheeks.
The drop.
We spat
Into the
Gorge.
To plant ourselves
Somewhere in the unseen
Below.
Belonging is dissolving,
Dispersing
Rations of yourself
Into the loved
You’re already missing.
Losing yourself
To the wind
(The space between
Two Cities)
The way flowers spit
Their seeds.
Take all these
Tiny pieces of me.
I hate my roots
But watch me leaf.
Watch me leave.
I want to love my own history with this taxidermic beauty, like snake ribs, pinned butterflies and dinosaur scales. I want to meet my loss with the same awe as I did that dead gorilla, stuffed full of might. I want to share the same dead gaze of recognition. Then you can make fun of my tears, of how much you love me, as we stumble out into the sun and back to the living. We tumble over one another like otters, clingy as monkeys, forgiving as tortoises and mighty as apes.We learn ourselves again. Veins aren’t paths leading you away. Scenery doesn’t split us. We’re fossilised into one another, imprinted. We’ll fly our migratory patterns across train tracks and leave each other hairs, plectrums and used pants to pose in our museum of missing.
puttingthedogtosleep 