Heart Madrigal
I mist snake plants and google the lifespan of sparrows
*
from biblical angles my pelvis resembles a coup
*
now that I have cut my hair, my skull brings forth its ancient embarrassment
*
I have waited thirty five years for this casserole to matter
*
the blood remembers études and moves accordingly with rubato
*
having never licensed elaboration, I have organised a trial
*
not a murmur – just a long finish
*
the heart that answers back
Anything But Endocarditis
bleacher mills, landlocked cloth
*
the firmness of a bristle strip
*
resurfacing but not of roads
*
thick fir, buckled pulse
*
a plague on these composite towns
*
bright, unequivocal song
*
swamp reeds over thorax, a desert glow
*
full body, fruit-forward
*
boys sulking like a moon
*
straw-yellow, the signature notes
*
the sweetest blandishing plasma
The First Murmur
was dipped in orange trunks, indecision
*
underwater, a little kingdom of shadows
*
bathed in shallow oxygen, in sapphire
*
struggling with the drag, chopping – at reservoir, at heath
*
plucked down quickly like just another liquid
*
the water closing around it like a fist
*
and the shingle still twinkled, and the rind was astonishing
*
and the sunlight still hurt
*
jagged digestifs to the clouds that chimed
*
the chamber music of all panic – spangling my ribcage like an oath
________________
Jack Barker-Clark is a writer from a valley in West Yorkshire. His stories and poems have appeared in 3:AM, Ninth Letter, The London Magazine, Prototype and elsewhere.
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