Why Not Do Neither By Doing Both
It’s been rough chuckles in the grief sauna.
Everyone sobs as their regret eggs incubate.
Each brain a fist at sunset, every smile
a dinner table of manta rays, all shuffling
their decisions into a hand of jokers and
the rules of whist. My hand is also a foot.
The choice: do I leave my neighbourhood
of lost car key posters? To hang no more
in doorways, backlit like an eye witness,
or the sunken relief of hobby catalogues?
To stop searching for a hollow body, mine
or otherwise, and pull a child from the milk
of evening? Plenty provide a hand from
their sewer, offer their tongue as ashtray,
advising their own good sense, but ever
since their laughter is in b flat minor, their
days are cleft for kindling against the chill
encroaching. The heat here is deafening,
and the light dulls the finer details. Love
divined a way through February. Now, no
truthful tableau is told: two hands, broiled.
Big Fluttery
That summer was sweet rolling We were two lawnmowers
choking on shredded tennis balls and my green kaleidoscope
refused to twist any further when I saw a photo of you
on a stone balcony Then I knew what I had always guessed
hearts are selfish but generous with their time
There was nothing but pride with no snug no jar
to be with the other gherkins transformed and happy
People say “Waking up in the morning what is it?”
It was a chainmail-free somersault a new perimeter
of wild grasslands a golden brick winking
in the pool’s deep end among electrocardiograms of light
I told a beach bonfire “it’s getting heavy” who replied
“Sorry, I’m falling apart” I travelled to historic rivers
to divine a solution but saw only newts nosing out from reeds
like ancient green moustaches I told the person I shared
my waking hours with “I still love you” and I ruined
what I then would have described as my life But
we bite this strawberry only once until the chest quits
its two-syllable mantra “hello, hello, hello, hello”
Alex MacDonald lives and works in London. He received an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors and has published three poetry pamphlets.