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ARIELLE GUY
Exile
But I am (but I am)
washed in forest:
in the sin of Atom;
Adam’s
post-apocalypse
we all swam in acid
toasted marshmallows by the sea
side-stepped, goose-
stepped the Majesty
of hope.
by my brilliant deductions,
our worlds should have ended
long ago
we’re still here
hold on
knuckles whitening
against stone
reddening as the rocks
rip our skin
our skin
our kin
levitators of Beauty;
all masks
All Saints
the Fallen congregate
around the Burned:;
syntax is lost
language is lost
prayer is lost
we are all dead
we are all dead
we are all dead
we are all dead
but wait! an earth-covered,
worm-tasseled hand
breaks through the boundary
of earth between life and death
and lives again;
the whole body, dirt-covered,
emerges from a rain-soaked grave
in early winter.
the snows haven’t come yet,
deep winter cold
hasn’t frozen the ground,
forbidding the dead to be buried there.
The sky doesn’t touch
pussy, justice,
Lord, God,
grave, my sodden,
my heart’s armor
of ribs; they protect like
a Claddagh ring,
like the sky,
opening to the moor,
to the outback,
to the tundra.
No one flourishes in infertile ground.
We’re same as green--salt the land and nothing grows.
