I admit little deaths.

City lung-shards		 					 pulp cigarettes.

Dust, zero aperture.

So the causeway imitates 			 			 	 the dial of weathervanes.

My caws’ red-combed sweeping.

Eyes as the reason 			 			 we can’t see, I toss

the seed into the river.

As if a penny can turn itself. 			 	 In a palm, 

gleaming. I become

an albeit. 			 			 		 A black cat licks 

his eye-whites clean.

A gibbet moon 			 			 	 banana ugly.

Cyclone metal

guns skeletal			 			 		and fences nothing.

Smaller, my whine pines

the taste of mud.

A tractor bleats 			 			 	diesel rattle 

so we list ourselves.

Ribbed fern sway 			 			mistakes breathing.

No returns, a hinge

clamps each shutter.			 		  	I shiver back.

In the garden, a woman

stuffs her mouth with quarters			 	to count them.

I swallow to watch her.

— Alexandra Mattraw (© 2009)


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