Pull
Unsure how many lives I’ve taken.
Hornets, spiders, the boy hardened – unbelonging
in the furling roots.
But this isn’t about the bodies,
it’s their shadows, seeping through the openings,
weighing the bones with dark.
Every tool I have is designed to part,
cleave, separate the feral mass, pulling at the heft of things.
A destroying. A wake.
Beneath the foot: an ant,
searching in the goring light. I press down, crushing
another skeleton, soundless,
colour hooked to the expanse of me.
I am all the things I’ve taken, sopping umbra
beneath the heel of God.
The Fall
the body closesslowly
no such thing as mercygod
appearingas water in the lungs
i have remade myselfinevitable
with all thissticky blood
dyingfeels
like fallinglike language
hook-pulled from wet throat
Moth
some boys are born
shakingfear
glinting through skin
pulled open by early
teethcannibal
armour enamelling
the bodythese
boys take like fire
like water carving
the world’s bone
to change is to die
a little moreso
tired of being afraid
these boys carry
their weight softly
moving through dust
like a mothnever
long enough to matter
always desperate to
find the light