Tag: poetry

Infections are all adoring
to the malleable flesh of unwilling deities.
In the way that almsgivers subscribe the psalms
of their love in the prayers and curling smoke of incense,
so too does the eagerness of disease worship — rather, strive after
the parentage of the body. It is devotion to a god who does not
love back, whose bloodstream shuns the bread and wine, all
bones and cells and atomic fluid burning with resistance.
Such that illness dares to honor the heart and lungs,
one being is polytheism.

to put it plainly, the maroon of dusk suffered
when you flicked on the light of your bedside lamp.
the nighttime things, all shadow and warmth,
cowered at the violent glare cutting from your upstairs window.
backs bristling, their meddling, medallion eyes
burst forth from the place of uncertainty and you shrieked.
it was childish, you knew, and you swallowed the poisoned air.
a twilight-spotted doe crushed the artificial light underfoot
as she fled the scene. don’t go. your voice was rusted copper.
you felt all apparent, like an untrimmed peacock in Pucci’s Firenze,
and you hated the swirling dust and must that framed you in the lamplight.
the light went off. the maroon settled. you stood still and listened for the night.