Content warning:
The rain stilling in our mouths & we are quiet,
passing through these flooded streets.
In June, a city catatonic in its sickness,
wreaths of streetlights stretching its mouth
in shades of disaster. I watch an entire reel
of gaslight unfold. With a torch,
everything is permissible, permeable.
Overhead, the moon blurring like sycamores
on a night train. I burn skin-suits,
sheens of motor-oil in the basement.
Like how you traded for a net of every name lost
in the throat of a storm—a miscarriage of salt.
Tracks stretching all the way to the shore,
turning bird-bodied. A swarm of swallows to sacrifice.
Come dawn, I flatten my face against
every storefront window—altar god, candles drowning
in gold. My hands never fast enough
to catch a hymn or the engine’s whistle.
Here, I search for everything we burned to keep
the power on, pockets of mercury.