Your signature brand of silence
is fast and sickening and syncopated
and leaves handprints
where it’s skipped by.
And it can’t be punctured
by surgical needles,
or drawing pins,
or a heart murmur skidding
to a halt –
so that the only defence
is to string yourself up
and hang there, hoping
to be passed over
for distillation into light.
You survey us, our long hair,
our puppet-fur, our
photographic melancholy –
and wonder which of us to polish,
and which to scour, and which to burn,
to make our sharp zinc breaths turn
pure and unreactive.
We slide from side to side
on our wire homes.
We betray each other’s sweat
and escape plans.
You reach up with your yellow arms
for me, webbing quiet,
and part of me is glad
just to be wanted.
A contest entry
- Because You Want To Be Challenged, Right? by HagarenHanyou.
900 points, ended October 16, 2008, 17 entries
Bronze trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Comments
-
And it can’t be punctured
by surgical needles,
or drawing pins,
or a heart murmur skidding
to a halt – ....
that verse is friggin amazing and i am in awe of your writing right now ... good luck in the contest ...
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