THREE (Untitled)
Poems
Jacob McGUINN
°
There was meat everywhere,
routine, a cloister,
and all that’s left is this noise
and your sickness on pastel
satin sheets. Mingled pastel
circles cross you from the window and lamp.
Now next door there’s a party.
I do all this for glory. And then,
at once, you get healthy.
Kiss your grandfather’s mouth,
now, while it’s open
back there for you
coral and clear,
the past all
at once a cure.
°
Delicious eight oh
eight snaps or:
you left me. Are
these correct? Bulbs
fish your face from
Paris, snow,
compensation,
loosen this space,
what was I talking of?
My exile keeps
happening again
through the window:
blank space,
tickets, cold water
on my teeth.
°
Paved under for support with each step
as the warm soft
tar rises
to you
you rise—
saurian, extinct—
up and plastic
clogging your worn shoes
while behind crowned light
withers under fingers
pressing the phone
screen down.
Jacob McGUINN lives in London and teaches at the University of London. February / Clean of smoke, song–a chapbook of poems–was published by AOTCS Press in 2015.