After we’re gone
the work of our knives will survive us.
—Atwood1
Because lightning, veins, branches,
and roots all look the same
maybe your pores will absorb
the soreness my fury
aborts, my rage exerts, fire
its faith in nothing, no
one, but its Self, pours forth to
discourage Solomon’s
once sealed djinn who are fossil
fuels we let loose, let
ooze, and now we’re screwed in our
abuse of ancient rules
we play against when we use
them like this, unamused,
they follow us to surface,
to be purged as they purge
the earth of us, thickening
sickness, as molasses
consumes a tongue entering
a mouth’s cavern, the noose
grips, tattoos letters in bruised
language the way loss braids
a river through the meat of
a heart, marbling its beef
until it falls apart, that
the current might carry
away Jonah swiftly, near
hell into the empty
belly of the whale and far
elsewhere, beyond the pale
of deep trouble, we the scorned
and scorched starters of fires,
us truant prodigals found
as easily as each
regret’s cause, this pause of ours
before letting get off
the other whose comfort our
anxious hearts want to play
with instead of having to
face hard discomfort’s lost
cost repaid stalks those this path
crosses, telling you as
I do, or attempt to, these
secrets we both know you
won’t keep, these twenty-three wounds
of couplets heroes bleed.
__________
1Margaret Atwood, “Carving the Jacks”, Stanza 5, Lines 6–7, in “[Cycle] III” of Dearly, published at Toronto by McLelland & Stewart in 2020; page 49.