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They are hostile nations
1
In view of the fading animals
the proliferation of sewers and fears
the sea clogging, the air
nearing extinction
we should be kind, we should
take warning, we should forgive each other
Instead we are opposite, we
touch as though attacking,
the gifts we bring
even in good faith maybe
warp in our hands to
implements, to manoeuvres
2
Put down the target of me
you guard inside your binoculars,
in turn I will surrender
this aerial photograph
(your vulnerable
sections marked in red)
I have found so useful
See, we are alone in
the dormant field, the snow
that cannot be eaten or captured
3
Here there are no armies
here there is no money
It is cold and getting colder
We need each others’
breathing, warmth, surviving
is the only war
we can afford, stay
walking with me, there is almost
time / if we can only
make it as far as
the (possibly) last summer
Returning from the dead
used to be something I did well
I began asking why
I began forgetting how
Spring again, can I stand it
shooting its needles into
the earth, my head, both
used to darkness
Snow on brown soil and
the squashed caterpillar
coloured liquid lawn
Winter collapses
in slack folds around
my feet / no leaves yet / loose fat
Thick lilac buds crouch for the
spurt but I
hold back
Not ready / help me
what I want from you is
moonlight smooth as
wind, long hairs of water
This year I intended children
a space where I could raise
foxes and strawberries, finally
be reconciled to fur seeds & burrows
but the entrails of dead cards
are against me, foretell
it will be water, the
element that shaped
me, that I shape by
being in
It is the blue
cup, I fill it
it is the pond again
where the children, looking from
the side of the boat, see their mother
upside down, lifesize, hair streaming
over the slashed throat
and words fertilize each other
in the cold and with bulging eyes
I am sitting on the
edge of the impartial
bed, I have been turned to crystal, you enter
bringing love in the form of
a cardboard box (empty)
a pocket (empty)
some hands (also empty)
Be careful I say but
how can you
the empty
thing comes out of your hands, it
fills the room slowly, it is
a pressure, a lack of
pressure
Like a deep sea
creature with glass bones and wafer
eyes drawn
to the surface, I break
open, the pieces of me
shine briefly in your empty hands
I see you fugitive, stumbling across the prairie,
lungs knotted by thirst, sunheat
nailing you down, all the things
after you that can be after you
with their clamps and poisoned mazes
Should I help you?
Should I make you a mirage?
My right hand unfolds rivers
around you, my left hand releases its trees,
I speak rain,
I spin you a night and you hide in it.
Now you have one enemy
instead of many.
We are standing facing each other
in an eighteenth century room
with fragile tables and mirrors
in carved frames; the curtains,
red brocade, are drawn
the doors are shut, you aren’t talking,
the chandeliers aren’t talking, the carpets
also remain silent.
You stay closed, your skin
is buttoned firmly around you,
your mouth is a tin decoration,
you are in the worst possible taste.
You are fake as the marble trim
around the fireplace, there is nothing
I wouldn’t do t...
