It starts
.
like precipitation, infusing
iron seeds that rest atop the ozone-dome
and flourish. Somehow I am coming to terms with
churches I will never go back to, and last-year’s friends
who own creative nobility but fail to nourish.
It is starting, culminating like a blood clot,
anchoring me to my drive, wringing out my squishy insides
until they are parched, until the robin’s song
registers austere.
Escape happens in the morning,
wading through yesterday’s debris,
fascinated by scars and euphoria that comes
opening airways.
Can I conceive of a crime that will not haunt?
There are rules to follow, bones that fit into sockets,
sacred formations that must not be tampered with,
and speeches spoken, brave enough to own on paper.
Biting is war; be it biting on silver,
gently marking areolas, or lacerating wet teabags.
I forfeited what I thought was a shield, sure it was
more than only emptiness swelling. It was
a birthmark, nihilism reclining over my pre-destined zenith.
There are things that start then overtake.
They emerge pure as children,
touch ground and vaporize. August is hard.
In that critical heat, everything that wavers between worlds
gets erased – splits up into two categories
of corpses and lifeforms that take celestial flight – ends up
where water sinks or where water concentrates,
either way, falls
but does not flow.
.
.
Copyright © 2011 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst
http://barometricpressures.blogspot.ca/2014/10/surrogate-dharma-allision-grayhurst.html?spref=fb
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-DuKJaq66ClMlFIWWU5cTY2RTQ/view
https://allisongrayhurst.com/shop/
.
First published in “The Muse (An International Journal of Poetry)”