It took him a week to master thought-diversion. He would leave home to walk to work and the moment the door was shut it was as though she followed him like a shadow on snow. If he wasn’t careful the ten-minute walk would be swallowed up in an imagined conversation. He had already allowed himself too many dark thoughts of tears and silences. He saw her befreckled by weeks in a light he had only read about. She would be a stranger for a while, a visitor from another world (until she gradually lost the glow on her skin and the smell of Africa became an elusive memory). He was frightened that he would be overwhelmed by her physical grace enriched by   southern summer and the weight of her experience, having so little to offer in return. So he practised thought diversion: as her shadow entered his consciousness he would divert his attention to China of the Third Century and what he would write next about Zuo Fen and her illustrious brother.

Sister and brother Zou gradually took on a fictional life. This he fuelled by reading poetry of the period and his daily beachcombing along the shores of the Internet. He built up an impressive bibliography for his next visit to the university library. Even in the Han Dynasty there was so much material to study, though much of it the stuff of secondary sources.

One morning he took down from his library shelf Max Loehr’s The Great Painters of China and immediately became seduced by the court images of Ku Kai’chih. This painter is the only artist of this period of Chinese antiquity to be represented today by extant copies. There was also a possible original, a handscroll in The British Museum. It is said Ku was the first portrait artist to give a psychological interpretation of the person portrayed. Before him there seems in portraiture to have been little differentiation in the characterization of figures. His images hold a wonder all their own.

As David looked at the book’s illustrative plates, showing details from The Admonitions of the Instructress to the Palace Ladies, the world of Zuo Fen began to reveal itself. A ‘palace lady’ she certainly was, and so possibly similar to the image before him: a concubine reclines in her bamboo screen and silk-curtained bed; her Lord sits respectively at right-angles to her and half-way down her bed. The artist has captured his feet deftly lifting themselves out of square-toed slippers, whilst Zuo Fen drapes one arm over the painted bamboo screen, her manner resolute and confident. Perhaps she has taken note of those admonitions of her instructress. Her Lord has turned his head to gaze at her directly and to listen. Restless hands hide beneath his gown.

        ‘Honoured Lord, as we have talked lately of flowing water and the symmetry of love I am reminded of the god and goddess of Xiang River’.
       ‘In the Nine Songs of Qu Yaun?’
       ‘Yes, my Lord. The opening verse has the Prince of Xiang say: You have not come; I wait with apprehension / And wonder who makes you prevaricate on your island / When I am so splendidly and perfectly attired in your honour?
       ‘Hmm. . . so you favour this new gown.’
       ‘It is finely made, but perhaps does not suit the light of this hour’.
       ‘Let the Yangzi River flow calmly, / I look for you, but you have not come.’
      ‘I gaze at the distance in a trance, /  Only to see the grey green waters run by.’
        ‘Honourable Companion, I fear you feel my mind lies elsewhere . ‘
       ‘I know you ride the cassia boat downstream.’
       ‘Indeed, my oar is of cassia and my rudder of orchid’.
        ‘I fancy that you build a house underwater, thatching it with a roof of lotus leaves . . .’
       ‘Well, if that is so, drop your sleeves into the Yangzi River and present the thin dress you wear to the bay of Li.’
       ‘I am in awe of my Lord’s recall of such verses . . . I love the Lady of Xiang’s description of the underwater house . . . with its curtains of fig leaves and screens of split basil.’
      ‘But will you send me all the spirits of Juiyi mountains to bring me to your side . . . will they come together as numerous as clouds?’
      ‘My Lord, my nose perspires . . .’
      ‘I offer my jade ring to the Yangzi River / and yield my jade pendant to the bay of Li. / I gather galingale fronds on an islet of fragrant grasses, / still hoping to present them to you. / If I leave, I might not have another chance. / So I’d rather stay here and linger a little longer.’
        ‘I gather the powerful roots of galingale / hoping to offer them to you who are still far away. / If I leave, I might not have another chance. / So I’d rather stay here and linger a little longer.’
      ‘Even though your nose perspires and your ******* harden . . .’
        ‘Kind Lord, you have taken the wrong role in the dialogue. Surely it is the Plain Girl who gives such advise to the Yellow Emperor.’
        ‘And I thought only men read the Sunujing . . .’
        ‘You forget I have a dear brother . . .’
       ‘With whom you have read the Sunujing! . . and no I have not forgotten . . . he sought permission to travel to the Tai mountains, some fool’s errand my minister states.’
         ‘He may surprise you on his return.’
        ‘Only you can surprise me now.’
       ‘My Lord, you know I lack such gifts . . . I hear your sandals dropping to the floor’.
      ‘I sail my boat ever closer to the wind / and the waves are
stirred like drifting snow.’
     ‘I can hear my beloved calling my name. / I shall hasten so that I can ride beside him.’


She seemed so child-like in that singular room of the garden annex. Her head had buried itself between the two pillows so only her ever-curling hair was visible. Opening a small portion of the curtains drawn across the blue metalled-framed French windows, he gazed at her sleeping in the dull light of just dawn. Outside a river-mist lay across the autumnal garden where they had walked yesterday before their tour of the estate. Unable to sleep he had sat in their hosts’ kitchen and mapped their guided walk in the rain, noting down his observations of this remote valley in a sprawling narrative. On the edge of moorland it was a world constrained and contained, with its brooding batchelor-owned farms and the silent legacy everywhere of a Victorian hagiographer and antiquarian. As he wrote and drew, snapshot-like images of her intervened unbidden. She both entranced and purposeful in a physical landscape she delighted in and knew how to read. Although longing to lie next to her he had sat gently for a moment on her bed, feeling the weight of her sleeping form move towards him as the mattress sagged, his bare feet cold on the stone floor. He placed his poem on the empty companion pillow, and returned through the chill of unheated rooms to the desert warmth of the Agared kitchen.


Lying in your arms
I am surprised to hear a voice
That seems in the right key
To sing what is in my heart.

After so many dark
inarticulate hours
I,  desperate
To express this love
That drowns me,
Suddenly come up for breath
(after floundering in
the cold water of night)
to find there were words
like little boats of paper
carrying a tea light,
a vivid yellow flame
on the black depths,
floating gently towards you . . .

Oh log of memory
record these sailing messages
So carefully placed, rehearsed,
Launched and found complete.

Knowing I must not talk of love,
Knowing no other word
(feeling the shape of your knee
with my right hand),
knowing this time will not
come again, I summon
to myself one last intimacy
before the diary of reason closes.

Zou Fen often wrote about herself as a rustic illiterate, country-born in a thatched hut, but given (inexplicably) the purple chamber at the Palace. As the daughter of a significant officer of the Imperial Court she appears to have developed a fictional persona to induce and taste the extremes of melancholy. Otherwise she is mind-travelling the natural world from her courtyard garden, observing in the growth of a tiny plant or the flight of distant bird, the whole pattern of nature. These things fill her rhapsodies and fu poems.

As a young man Zuo Si had wild flights of fantasy. He imagined himself as a warrior. In verse he recalls reading Precepts on the Art of War by Ssu-ma Jang Chu. With a scholar’s knife he writes of quelling the barbarian hordes (the Tibetans) in their incursions along the Yang-tze. When triumphant he would not accept the Emperor’s gift of a title and estate, but would retire to a cottage in the country. Then again, as a student scholar, he describes failure, penury and isolation ‘left stranded like a fish in a pond, without – he hasn’t a single penny in his account: within – not a peck of grain in the larder.’ He was never thus.

Like all good writers sister and brother Zou were the keenest observers. They took into and upon themselves what they saw and gathered from the lives of others, and so often their playful painted characters hide the truth of their real lives. David looks at his dishevelled poetry and wonders about its veracity. He always thought of Rachel as his first (and only) reader; but what if she were not? What would he write? What would his poems say?

*I lie on my back in her bed.
On her stomach, her arm on my chest,
She props herself against me
so that I see her face in close up.
She gazes
out of the window

I don’t think I have slept at all,
My own bed was so cold.
She warms me for a while.

All night
I’ve been thinking
what to say to her,
and now I am too weary
to speak.

I am in despair,
Yet I ache with joy
At having her so close.

I wish I knew who I was,
What I could be,
What I might become.

A voice tells me
that such intimacy
will not come again.

It was, as the New York Times all but sniffed
(Even then, a haughty mix of bluenose and black ink)
Further proof the poor, misguided Upstate rubes
Were no more than ample fodder
For any tinhorn, two-bit confidence man to take for a ride.
Fair enough—it was, to the careful eye and unheated psyche
Clear as the azure blue sky that,
Despite the best efforts of acid wash and a year underground,
So obviously a statue as to be absolutely laughable,
And yet the vox populi came in waves,
Not only one-gallus farmers from the fields nearby,
But from the great cities near and far
(Chicago, Philadelphia, and, yes, even New York itself
To throw Hannum a quarter to view his gargantuan grotesquery
Just as described in Genesis itself, he noted solemnly
So many, indeed, that Barnum himself was divinely inspired
Not only to purloin the giant, but its prior owner’s epigram
As to the frequency of the manufacture
Of his too-credible customer base.
While there was (briefly, at least) some mystery surrounding
The origins of the brobdingnagian mass of stone,
It remained (to some, anyway) equally unfathomable
Why scores of folks would careen in unsteady coaches
The full length of the Catskill Turnpike,
With its questionable lodging and uneven roadworthiness,
Or patiently suffer the mosquito-laden flatboats of Clinton’s Ditch
All to spend the cash equivalent of two trips to the county fair
To see a perfectly good hootchie-kootchie show
Simply to gawk at an unevenly carved rock of questionable authenticity,
But that explained quite simply,
As the public always gets what the public wants.

She counted the night away
the neon street lights disappaiting,
sitting on her grandmothers crocheted bed cover
her pink knickers hid her body wide goosebumps,
the froid unheated bedsit
plied with her emotional turmoil,
vexed boyfriend and always tomorrow.

First the illicit thrill
Becomes routine habit
Run of the mill
Like you're invincible.

Once, your heart beated
Feverish, hesitant,
Now you swagger, unheated,
The cheat can't be cheated.

The check-out girl, Lizzie,
Is trusting and smiling
Then she turns away, busy
And you're suddenly dizzy.

To your pocket inside
Go the chocolate bars -
Though it's undignified
There's a strange kind of pride.

Then - out of the blue,
In front of the world,
One day she asks you....
And what can you do?

...But collapse to your core
Like a worm-eaten apple
Pray to fall through the floor
You are Named, evermore.

Oh - the shame! she's disgusted
You're a thief, you're mistrusted
All that shock and self-loathing
For those moments you lusted.

Poor girl, she won't be aware
That her face and her voice
Will feature forever
As worst memory, lowest nightmare.

You'll be chilled to the bone
And you'll ask yourself "Why?"
Without job, wife or home,
Foolish, guilty, alone?

Walk blindfolded through the city
to not see is a pity
unable to see the light
on this beautiful night
as we reach the mirror pool
judgement passed
like we're crazy

We take off our socks and shoes
as people exchange their views
Through looks and glances
we take our chances
and continue to run through the fountain
as the night become later
and later

numbness felt in our toes
as the unheated water shows
what it can really do
we put on our shoe
the the other
feet still wet
From the water as we leave
maybe something different next week.

The streets, plain
The scenery, new but unchanged
The city, now black and white
The candle that failed to ignite
The crisp morning air
The usual affairs
The same unheated ground
Then there was a faint sound
The leaves started to sway
There was a presence of warm sun rays
The grass and flowers danced
The prospect, enhanced
All because my ears have found
A vaguely familiar and new sound
An enamoring explosion of melody
An enthralling harmony
A beguiling musicality
An enslaving euphony
A perfect array of notes
Flowing with a hypnotic coat
A piercing tune
Resembling a rune
It's rhythm, throbbing
It's tempo, moving
The sound was too perfect and strong
That it seemed like a torturous song
Nonetheless, it was a beautiful beat
Beautiful enough to move my feet
What I heard was an alluring sound
That eventually made me slide through the ground
I closed my eyes and followed what I heard
Walking, searching, to clarify the blurred
The faint sound, grew louder
Eventually I was overpowered
While seeking for the source of the hymn
I turned into a willing victim
My feet have stopped moving
When I saw a man, the man who was playing
My eyes settled upon his silhouette
Which was in contrast to the sunset
There he was, sitting on a wooden stool
Unknowingly making all the listeners drool
His fingers fluttering atop black and white keys
Creating color through a musical breeze
I saw him, that man
Still playing, talking through his hands
I followed a sound and saw a pianist
And then my heart was kissed
Not because of the music that made my ears fuss
Not because he splashed paint all over the dull canvas
But because of how he looked at the instrument
It's as if, for the piano, his eyes were meant
How he gazed upon it with those eyes
As if the piano was his only prize
How he goggled the piano with those eyes
As if for that instrument he was willing to agonize
As if he can only see the piano
As if there was only him and the piano
It was that look that little girls dream of
It was that look that symbolized love
That look that little girls wished were for them
That look that would give little girls contemn
That look that was only for the piano
That look that was pure as snow
That look was colorful and honestly warm
That look that entrapped a celestial swarm
That look which was gentle and intense
That look which was passionate and immense
That look which was alive, painful and afraid
In that moment, I longed for a shooting star's aid
As if a little girl, I wished for what little girls wish for
I wished for him to look at me like that, nothing more
But none can compare with his instrument
Nor to the reason why he plays it with such  intent
To the new girl he plays for
To the girl he currently adores
I hope his sound reaches you
I hope you listen and give him value
I hope you look at him as he plays for you
Look at him like how he looks at the piano when he thinks of you
Like how the crowd looks at him as he plays like this
Like how the little girls look like when they wish
Like how he used to look at the piano
When he misses and plays for the little girl, not too long ago

Let us go ewe and I
When with bleating out against the sky
Like patent leather renowned in fable,
Let us go, though uncertain quartered feats,
The mutton retreats
Of restless nights in fun house hotels
And raw dust l'enfant motels:
Bleats that bellow like hideous ungulates
In unheated tents
To bleed you to an ouvre question ...
Oh, go ahead and ask, " Feel my ***?"
Let us go us two misfits.
...

*Apologies to T.S. Elliot

Reading the air , salt hanging on the lips of this breeze
current spray travels inland          far beyond beach dunes
rolling in
with the edge of a storm breeze and the unmistakable smell of
almost-ready-to-fall rain.

sweeping stories of deserts once visited, textured sand clinging---

telling the tale signs of weather movements
not yet visible upon horizons vision---

whispering soft respite in dank humid moments
a storm is hours away from breaking,
leaving in the same way whispers come,
quietly and unlikely to be repeated.

Then I
myself
create the slightest of particle movements
as I stride and sit
grin and ****.

Wrapping around me, scent of night
unheated air, falling coolness

I ignore the dinner party and breathe
a current spray, far from the beach dunes     kissing my olfactory system
almost-ready-to-fall rain's unmistakable scent
dressing me in anticipation

wisdom of these tides
sing deep within me
as the salt hangs on my lips
I read the air.

Dreamland~
A place where-
All living entities are light in colour, translucent at times.
Clouds are soft, edible, fluffy cotton candy.

People are kind and gentle.
Where God walks with man,
physically living as his neighbour,
Us being worthy of such delight.

Where no darkness gathers
For twelve hours of golden unheated sunlight,
Then twelve hours of silver glistening moonlight
Leave no room for shadows to dwell.

Our bodies are divine,
placing our hands on trees we consume the required nutrients daily.
We absorb it , cell to cell,
exchanging energy blissfully,
never taking more than our share.

We understand coexistence,
cooperation,
togetherness, support, love and trust.
We take care of each other as a must.

We swim like mermaids.
Consistently swimming -our legs merge together,
cells stay connected
as long as we're in water.
Breathing by air bubbles even in laughter, we race the otters.

We Fly acrobatically as humming birds
Cheerful, Calm
Without doubts.

This dreamland,
my canoe leads to.
An Egyptian boat ride.


2:09am Saturday, May 14th, 2016.

As the night shifts, the glass prints
The universe retorts and restores
Connective strands pulls from dark
Exposed from the rumbled tosses

Mosses generate, diversified integration
Masses inaugurated in magical reality
Electrified from the syndical sorrows
Tarots of the forgiven, sad sung songs

The tree branches held strong as I slid
The town halls illuminated to capture
A magnificence of a nature umbilical
Enclosed in the warmth of the placenta

My centre cored on the base of the earth
A need to belong on grounded dense soil
Calm tornados and typhoons unheated
Treated in fountained grace of existence

inspired by TC Tolbert's poem, ""Dear Melissa"*

                                        ~~~

joined skin cells shed and shredded,
two bodies, a compositoy,
an experiment in the temporary,
now, lost under lock and key, at a secure depository,
remote, undisclosed location,
kept unheated in a dark cool place
to preserve their combinatory
slow, half-life decaying oratory

the body is never an accident,
even though we mostly are,
accidental tourists, two collision-prone comets,
lark, rambling rambunctious adventurers,
on a half-day tour only,
leaving behind commingling blinking dust vapor trails,
 emissions of a tour bus journey rerouted
                                                            while under orbit sail

some cells, microscopic, preserved digitally,
aged to imperfection, thrash my eyes,
making me speak in tongues I do not recognize,
but fluently possess, no wonder there,
the memory place fairly empty,
room aplenty for passerby's and the imagery
                                                         ­ of the vaguest of dearly departed

skin is not the only mot shed,
                                                       sloughing of woeful words, shelled

                    
                                     ~~~


Dear Melissa
TC Tolbert

a curve billed thrasher
is cleaning its beak on the ground—
we are closer now than ever—sitting
in shadow—I never want to scare
anyone—not really—I have a friend
who loves people who come out
suddenly—in the dark—
                                          pleasure
is the same distance as pain from here—
that’s my skin on your sweater—both hands
stripped now—I know I am someone
to you I am entirely—practicing
Spanish on the computer—gesturing to
the neighbor instead of speaking—
                                          to sharpen
the body is never an accident— someone
I know I am not—letters are inseparable
from loss—moving what can be still
moved—one is sweeping the mouth—
what ever isn’t skin—take it off—

He  never wanted
to be stymied or recalled.
If the Spiff could plough through
enough people as a blasé traveller,
he would bag their yesterdays.
But looking through their Zebra glasses
over time , whose  skies are really
outdone by the proverbial
"mind your own bees wax" ?
it was always the same, the arcane strain,
like overhearing variants of Serbo-Croat
on an unheated train to Chippenham.

on the day my sister was born,
my dad took me to a minor league baseball game.

i watched the pitcher as he chewed the
pitcher’s mound to shreds with the teeth
of his stride. the ball combed the air, taking with it debris from the kind of sad people
who show up to watch short-a ball
while somewhere, a little girl is
dragging out her claws and staking her
claim on the operating table.

my older brother littered the yard with
bottle caps. this stadium was his dream.
he would have slept in the unheated walls
for a chance to touch all 216 stitches
with two perfect hands.

the batters today are fooled by
a series of nasty changeups that
cough their hearts up. peanut
butter and jelly awaits them in the
dugout. a couple of halfhearted
diehards keep score on the back
of their wrists, the pen tying up
their veins. the pitcher authors
the whole game like that, a painful
rush.

i want to leave. the kind of
faultless art makes me sick. he
was born in uniform, certainly,
and glowing, his arm whipping
around from the womb and tossing
out any notion of normalcy his parents
may have held. nobody can touch him.
he never cut his feet on old
beer caps in a quest to touch
a patchwork god.

the next hitter becomes a runner
when his hands take his heart
around the block and come back
with a ball cutting the air, colliding
with a meteor that surely would have
destroyed the world. someday on a
faraway planet they will see that ball
bouncing through the stars, restless as
the man who drove it. that spot on the
atmosphere may never recover from its
brush with non-destiny.

nobody dreams in the minor leagues, not even
the batter-runner whose arms have just
propelled his team to a spot above
heaven. god will surely collapse them soon.

there is a girl somewhere, being bathed
by a stranger. she has ceased to be dead.
a miracle for certain.

“The problem with falling is sooner or later
you’ll have to hit something.”
- Jenny Owen Youngs

My eyes met your eyes
at nine years old in the cafeteria.
I learned you were terrible
over a loud lunch where

your laughter met the spilled drink
and tears making their way
down another’s skin.

Your hands met my back
before I met the sting
of your unheated pool.
This was the standard when

my lips met your lips
at an age we boasted
in a space that was ours.

My friends met your personality
not once.
Our space was where you launched us.

My gaze met the Milky Way
when you were the only one
around to care for light years.

My feet met the ground
when you called me
your favorite expletive.
You rethought that stunt when

my fist met your face
upon remembering how terrible
you were in the first place.

Sitting alone in a park
and a familiarity sent
chill inside your spine
like a spark; the sudden
even playing in front
you took you to your
tomorrow, and all you
could think of is a
vivid memory of your
the warm home you
came from; the vague
feelings took over
soon as you heard a
song and surprising
noises of the children
playing at the other
side; you never felt
so nostalgic with it
"I feel like this thing
Happened before?"
you thought and
your girlfriend came;
everything vanished.

—Deja Vu

you arrived your home,
exhausted and hungry
Yourself felt detached
with everything inside
The home was unheated;
it has been years after
your parents died from
sickness and accident;
Your chest felt heavy
and an overwhelming
feeling oozes down
like what you have felt
awhile ago at the park;
uneasy with the tight
unnamed feelings, you
felt negativity inside;
the detachment tires
your whole being more
and you will see yourself
crying to release the
uninvited feelings

—Jamais Vu

In a dusty room, dark, in your heart’s blindspot, right there, behind the fold...

there sits

The untiring, my untying, a flame, fatal, that preys, pierces, pulls and dances down...

down, go down, then see the smoldering and  flowered flame... a fire that passes into once humbled hearts, stuttering till it shoots, straight to a shop work and sunken soul, it presses, presses, push into paste, now all to ash... with ash it chokes, with ash that never ask if it may that blind you... I cough when I remember your scent, choking... choking, choking, bound and blue by all those that dare not defend, those that dare to pretend that they could haunt like you,

haunted damnation  , when I dare to dream that diurnal oasis daydream...

daydream illusions, illusory in that final form, fill up the day, flicker flame, flicker unfaded forever more, moreover may we emerge, emerge again, each day resilient, always arisen, rising again and again unbroken; unbroken and unbound as the spherical shadow sits against an aged and golden summer sky...

hold, held now, the grip, that grip, a grip of a million thoughts, the grip of a gaggle of lunatics; the lunacy of those madmen screaming, maniacal men with their long claws...

“Come now”, I pull, pull away, scratched but unsullied, away with my tense and tethered thoughts, thoughts of a woman; where is she?

“oh woman, woman of pure and pallid beauty; tell me of tomorrow, pretend to portend, promise me it is there burning so still inside you”...

still, still I stood, stood inside that stillness, so sullen and so clear eyed in the realization that, I would eye a thousand faces just to see you...

you, you stole, stole the thunder, and laughed at lightning, with your hips held down, writhing when I witnessed, witnessed and watched you with a holy cutting cold glance, insisting i ”hurt you in a good way”, pleading for more, in the sacramental haze of an eternal disorder...

now willow, wisp, widen, wake and open my once violent, violet, and envied eyes... because I, I was empty, emptied and forever falling, into the gravity of you, you and your irises aflame pulling me hard like 10,000 planets, each with 10,000 suns, sparked when I saw you stroll so serpentine in red *******...

pull, pull back now drawn, drawn in and dripped like warm candle wax... down, down, do it, dance away like those storied flames, for martyrs mind not the Solomon sacrifice of the final flame’s immolation ...

naive, naive as the spring, naive as children caught in an illusory and smokey future... the churlish, chided, child’s lament, lamenting now those souls, our souls, souls sewn cold, souls once so elusive...

trapped in a vacuum

a souls will burn until extinguished... go, gone, gone, unable to burn, to blast a fire, for in a furnace, a furnace gone cold, it’s where we are found **forever jealous of the once animated, deoxygenated unheated and hateful heart

a prescription for Ambien next to the pile of bills on the night stand
a cold glass of water, now ice, in the unheated room - a constant reminder of loss. mascara smudged eyes, an arm hanging off the bed, blood seeping through bed sheets --
passed out again last night --
the morning sunlight streaks in through the dusty window,
eyes slowly blink open, a sudden **** to grab the metal trash bin,
the contents of her body purged.
last night was another binge; food, alcohol, ******, marijuana, ecstasy- wishing it was a night of clubbing - it was just a night alone in the park bathroom.
it's hard for a skeleton to get up without getting dizzy,
the toilet's clogged up again with remnants of breakfast, dinner, and lunch. the tub is brown again with dried up blood.
the bed sheets are ***** with black tears.
the scissors lay peacefully on the bathroom counter,
softly whispering her name, calling out for her to quench their thirst,
she reaches out to the only thing that needs her.
she feeds them.
only scissors love.

I didn’t know how to explain where I go
until I realized

the feeling is the same
as when I was a child
in the town swimming pool
devouring youth
until the corners of my mouth itched blue,
and shivers took over the goosebumps,
and I only focused on the icy way
my arms stirred in the unheated pool.

That’s where I go—
to the cold.