Thirst

.

Mapping out oblivion, putting

lines where there are no lines. Like the small moths

that live all year in my closet, nibbling at clothes

I forget to wear,

making a feast with what has been discarded –

I feel connection, but only at one end,

like cutting eyelids

out of clay: Finger-made eyes that cannot see,

cannot approach my trembling body, gaze over it

and crack the distance.

 

Entering this thirst like entering a church,

climbing wide stone steps,

being bombarded with that floral, incense smell, or

like warring with a round whitish eucharist wafer,

stuck to the roof of my mouth.

There is no garment to keep me warm,

no thistle to swallow, scarring

all the way down. There is only the afterbirth of this thirst,

void of the fattened wail, shadow, the kind

the TV traps in its frame.

 

How am I to dissipate this growing, encroaching wave, rest

like before, when my mouth was not so dry, rest

on a raft, my head leaning over, under seawater,

conversing calmly and feeling one with

schools of curious but contented swimmers?

.

.

.Copyright © 2012 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

.

First published in “Wax Poetry and Art Magazine, Volume 3, Number 5”