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Poems

gulping

By Robin Gow From Issue No. 8

more than i can manage. ears as acolyte bells. i ring tuesday’s doorbell & wait for the sun. arriving is a series of stoops. concrete hardens into the cast of a poet’s face. my uncle plays pacman in the corner of a dead pizzaria. he is full of quarters. i peel back my skin to find a swarm of beetles. shiny back. all gems are just insects with their legs pluck off by miners. a shaft is waiting in the basement. i take a fork & a spoon & whittle away at the earth. dirt tastes like autumn. the seasons have given up on me. it is just summer summer summer. a tulip where the light bulb should be. the sound of losing the video game. my uncle with his huge coarse hands & a joystick toggling. i have seven knees & five eyes. a blinking ache in my joints. who is going to change the last light bulb? who is going to unhinge sigh from his teeth. i want a new finger to press to the roof of the animal’s mouth. my vocabulary isn’t strong enough to tell you how the basement hurts. remove the tooth & burry it. we need more trees. how long will it take for the seed to sprout. red leaves. vein stem. the earth’s core is full of blood; hot & stewing. somewhere the tea leaves are read & suggest death. a tarot card is pulled that means no one is going to sleep tonight. i try to swallow a pencil but it gets stuck & not a ghost writes poems in my throat. who will become a planet? who will unknot the necks of trees from one another? a bird is taking up oil paints. i am the bird & there is no canvas just a blank wall in my house that has been staring at me. i need to cover it’s sixteen eyes. maybe we were all angels & then we were banished. i once touched a boy’s back & felt where his wings used to be. i once swallowed a boy & the next day spat a tangle of ivy out into the backyard. it is still working its way up the mountain. the planets roll down hill & nestle with each other. i turn a light out & cradle my extra three eyes in the dark before placing each in my mouth one by one.

About Robin Gow More From Issue No. 8