Cork, July afternoon
A shirtless man with a black mohawk is raking
dry leaves across the road
her name tattooed on his spine, letters a foot high
blue Dunhill lip-hung and peeling
the uncaring lilt of decades pulling at that
sweet smoke, the pleasure of destruction transfigured
over muscle. Your back creaks like a knife
discoloured in the body of a whale
a beaching of something ancient
on a cold Atlantic shore, the carving
of sorrow into sustenance. I want to know
what broken bond, what gasp of newborn breath
could inaugurate this ink? Instead our mouths lay
soft as straw across the threshold of a speech left
quietly alone, eyes sharing a look that says
promises, that says we are the rough bodies
that know these afternoons, the blunt keepers
of words thickened into sinew. I say thank you
to the rays that burned us into being
and to her, the great shadow, gathered up
into this testament of skin.
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Daniel Fraser is a writer from Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire. His poetry and prose have featured in: LA Review of Books, Aeon, Acumen, X-R-A-Y, Entropy, The London Magazine, and Dublin Review of Books among others. He was awarded 3rd prize in The London Magazine 2019 Poetry Competition. Twitter @oubliette_mag. Web http://danieljamesfraser.wordpress.com/.