I
Your breath slipping through crevices,
breathe into stagnance,
suspended in the air in the heat of quiet.
Lethargy that droops, hovers,
blankets in familiarity.
Hung in the air, still and writhing,
held as a breath in a cage—
through slivers, sweat spotted sheets and creaks—
walls that close in, that stand still,
floorboards cold with inanimation
whispering in the night.
Hanging from the ceiling an entrapment of insects,
still—you blink, frozen in fear—
fluttering,
irises meeting eyespots and antennae
flickering in your vision
they double,
then settle.
Surveiling the hovel of your unrest.
But stay still, nothing will happen.
Imprints of limbs on white chalky walls are just impressions,
their wings drop dust that form a pyre.
Sweat forms on your brow, clamming,
eyes open, eyes shut,
somewhere there is a twitch that responds to your heart’s thrums,
humming like the wire that runs through you,
humming like the suspension of your will,
humming like the last breath that falls
before you sleep and slip away.
II
The mess around you melts into your perceived realities—
A capsule, a scrap of fabric, rumpled, torn and distressed—
where walls warp and contort as they do in delusions that swirl about your static indifference.
Dusted surfaces, an old memoir, greened silver and a yellowed encyclopaedia flutter like time’s pulse.
You are a frame of flesh, blood and bone, polyrhythmic to all else.
Lying flat, supine within the hovel
collecting dust.
III
The precipice dawns on a new veil
where dust carries no dominion.
Visions of utopias in a new sky
with its eyes hued golden, breathing and besetting
its gaze on your soul.
Light is the breath that peruses your movement,
chest rising and falling with the effervescent dawn.
And you do not mind,
as the sun nurtures and you become
more than yourself. Even as borealis cracks the heavens
and your body seizes with something wrangling
in your mind—dustbitten and distant—
there is something waiting
for you to rise again.
And when it comes time to depart, you are unaware,
your head tilts back, throat bared to an open volley of stars.
And even when the silence of the night gives way
to a pale, hoary, beaded gossamer sky, with your feet planted, dark
footprints on the fiery leaves on the ground, you realise
no one holds their breath.
Imprints on pastoral poems are just intrusions.
Illusions of your rest are only intermezzos.
And you open your eyes to the sun again—
eyelets on wings that stare with conviction.
There are no suns and divine silks to envelop you,
reeling to articulation,
realising the walls,
the biting chill of the sweat that seizes your skin,
the insects that now lie supine beside you,
bellies up,
wings splayed and still,
post-mortem. Suspended in a moment
that captures your polyrhythm.
