remove your shoes
the neighbor pulls wefts of swamp from the oak
mistaking moisture wicking ornament for parasite
in doorway aches july
stay
watch water boil
I will wash saltings from your linen
lengthening your sunday best
proof the dough, a second rise
as the harmonica swells dusk
stay
watch water boil
braid your mourns as the moss does the oak
over ice cream shared in split licks—
alternating currents
between accordion pleats summer
stay
watch water boil
I have sugar cubes and plums to halve:
modest offerings for your possession
in quiet hymns north and south
mouths beg the river
god, my guest
god, my rations
god, my paring knife
god, my electric bill
god, my flight risk
stay
watch water boil
if not your ornament, make me your parasite
Seventh Gallery
Emerging Writers Program
Melbourne, Australia, 2023
unloadening
there was a saint once, who
separated his head from his body so that
he mightn’t be summoned to deliver such unholy news
with hopes that unsealing would disbar him as messenger
he carried instead his head and delayed ordinance
in a coin purse—business as usual—now companioned by
a mirror to aid in such things where heads are necessary
he rest his head atop this mirror
so that he may see the celestial bodies on reflected surface
void of direct
gaze and
revelation
and so he took to bleeding rivulets and spoons
for concave planes to avert postal impositions
and with flesh and material abstractions
he wandered—daring not part with either
but news, regardless of its appointee’s suspension,
will curdle so scent may still alarm in rejection of sight
look me in the eyes, headless one
bring me what you’ve so long harbored
rearrange please, so I too may see—
mock me not, dignify me with
the severing to which you’ve grown so attached
but unable, he dispatched birds
to organize entrails and moldening bread—
scattered tidings spelled upon the ground,
the winged deliverers unloadening what the saint could not
and when departed, he left neither frame nor nest
