I’m surrounded by synchronized delays,
splices in the handholds’ absorption, always
coming extra. It turns out I’m living
midway inside a parody of newsworthy
juice. There’s no spare bedroom, not one
decorative sham, not in this emergency.
The better halves of what’s best
about me? All too acquainted with
the mazy hush of the corridor in which
supersensible angels bestow
their laws only in scribbles tattooed
across the overdue. Like every
feeling generally, this pathology
has blossomed into a menagerie
of fleecy petals. Barge in, why don’t you,
you columns, you cloying instructions
on how to prolong one’s enjoyment.
The perfume of convalescence causes
humiliation to lose its appetite, or
dodge each meal’s strike; the bones
of its rationale begin to knob and peep,
white fires mapping those habitats
reclaiming the skin’s usufruct.
I’m just trying to lever the plots
making you comfortable
into pure practicality. Don’t fret,
their cures present no obstacle.
Those feelings will reason together
under the cafeteria’s jaundiced lamps,
aching to seed the quadrangle with their
cigarette butts, instead swilling
the lumpy solace of stuffing the candy
machine with ”however” after ”however.”
Copyright 2016 by Joe Milazzo. Used with permission of the author and Apostrophe Books.
Ett varmt tack till Joe Milazzo och Apostrophe Books för att vi fick publicera den här dikten, som är hämtad ur The Habiliments (2016).
Milazzo bor och verkar i Dallas, Texas, och på hans hemsida hittar du en massa matnyttigt om hans diktsamling, hela hans författarskap och en rad dikter.
Ola Wihlke
BearBooks 