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Stuart McPherson

 

The Heart Pushes Out, The Heart Rests

 

Every bloodied nose

     assessed in relation to 

anatomies of the skull. Clothes

         filled out unbeknownst to time or

the graduations of a belt notch. Sleep

suppressant. Vested interests in the grey

    shades of skin, blood moon held

beneath eyelid. There are two of us

         here, you have spoken to us both.

We lied, the same as the chocolate and

         damson lied to your tongue. It isn’t

difficult to split into two when partitioned by    

     glass. We, and by that I mean us, deny all

in the same way a river denies the weight of

             a dying salmon. To float down

        rapids as two separate pieces of a

knotted branch. The bears are on their haunches.

     The ovaries, full of roe, ripe for the pawing.

Laid bare on the rocks, your mouth stained with   

              Auburn is fear. This is our ceremony.   

       Pressure is an ending, a snake's tongue.   

 Choose between starvation or rebirth into an    

      estuary mouth. Water once known as cloud,  

              once seen stabbed upon the knife of a   

      mountaintop. Deliver me from trances, from  

          tricks of the light. Scare me towards the 

                               fate of a dead man gasping his

                                                 way back to life.

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