Author: Henry

Before words, it was cold.cold and quick,clear, and bruisedice-water over verbal roarbefore-beginning is loud, confused. We race from the sprain,following threshold flowbuoyed by, being load. Too smallto present, to adhere,we’re pulledand shakengurgle in the stream. Life, energy and meltwaterBeginning violence. Our words are movement,born by notdying today, bythe sway, the stayof judgment. When to flow,…

Robe me in whitecover me with maplelet me be the woodsflashed red. Watch thick, sugary sapflow from my bonesmy fingers, turning, shed gold. Remnants of frayed robesspread a blanket,drift snow. You shall know meby lettersengraved on a milestone,by my brilliance in morning light. Listen to the rustleof stories at sun fade.

Closed eyes againstthe sittingthe openingthe taking inof a chair The shape of a thingthe breathing inthe shape of airconducted. The letting go,this listing, the rustletraffic, a cough. Let eyes swimto focus on focus itself:two hands holding tightthe space between.

Fly-away strands of a carp moon,Looked for in milk pools,Lost as lettuce, sandwichedBetween grey bread andThick-spun sun, plastic sheetPoked through and dotted with strawberriesNot ready to pick, underworldwhite as the lanes we swamIn the dark, in the nude. The olive gray of your bikiniA drab and determinedCrush, a smile that takes in others withUncertainty, that…

Wood, nut, bolt, bit, blow dusted-off stamensBubbles clamped in metal molds, then nipped offTheir blowpipe, still-red dustings of pollenFused into a single tapering cough.A cough brings back company in carpelsFruits of our husked labour, planing the grainOf exotic woods, tongue-and-grooved gospelsThe chosen godspeed could never attain.

Behind dark glassa black eye or,frustrated in the green room,grease paint, supplya horizontal exclamation point A full house quiet hushof harmonics, layered wavesgrowing impatient:steps climbedironing outthe amplification of birdsong. A cough from the orchestraon your browa two day marchfrom the borderoscillating frequenciesbunkering injust out of sightof eye-liner drawnto a pointmapped cloudaccentuating the sweepof the field.…

You had me at hello:restrained yearsfill a glass with tap watertiredness, my urge tomouth your name,a priori pick up the phonecasually hear your voice,your retrained received English,sharp chiding German angles,your I-should-have-knownretained allegory. I order the cheese you didn’t eat.I sit where you sat,a three-dot promise of reply,a turn-down servicechocolate on a crisp-ironedcotton pillow case. I…

Roar and rend your way, spiralsof heaven’s stars sprayed nationsthrough a straw, sticky and drippingwith quiet-cast paint passingheat tremors in air ductswhere aerosols alonegeyser streams of gas hissinto the night’s suck. Do we grow inverse, over time, as you coilbaiting genres that came before?Your hands, a stall for the ripcord,the whip-back rush before a gentle…

Petrol-lines trianglesin green and gold leaf,the flick of a nostrilwith a thumbhold your hand on your eyebrow,squint into blue shadow. Your phone totempulled from an Issey Miyaki leitmotif,a finger held to your temple,antenna to your tiredness,your yawn. Crossed legs,blue trousers turned twiceto below mid-calf. No harm, no invitation,slumped to focus on, thumbthrough bric à brac.…

Those dropped-away mistsare box-breaths betweensmooth and wrinkled skinthe playing of a handnot to win but to hold the trickin your palm, to lay iton the table, shuffle and cut,and watch hawks flusterclouds of sparrows,quick-shifting shapelesshold-for-fivepoint clusters.