←        POIESIS 1.2 :: SYZYGY        →

this poem to be plundered to tremble down a belted slide to make a hole
in the world thrown to the wind, shown to you that I know nothing

of hands & broken seals nothing divining quality controlling bacterial rhymes
a projectile chant touching itself that joy machine cursingout the cure here

where we’ve got scanned facts and nowhere to put them but in the extinguished sunlight. our love & logistics play truth or dare our rituals write me

famously alive these neural pathways I walk along memorizing wild
flower after wild flower you make flammable bouquets of all

the heat I’ve never felt that permeates the ground water that writes me shattered.
a palliative shame is all in you honey that long slow stream combed and crystalized

our pressurized limit this broken up thing. where we became what we beheld, godly
how love rendered me useless, uses me wrong & this below all:

you don’t owe me anything but me and when you possess
the emergency make it kinetic then detonate that prayer

ROSIE STOCKTON is a poet based in Los Angeles. Their first book, Permanent Volta, is the recipient of the 2019 Sawtooth Prize, and is forthcoming from Nightboat Books in 2021. Their poems have been published by Publication Studio, Monster House Press, Jubilat, Mask Magazine, and WONDER.

Originally published August 2020 in poiesis 1.2: syzygy by w the trees.