Sarah Fox
$5
I tried to look. I carefully
talked to him whose form
dimmed, escaped its body,
superimposed over an imaginary
snake. Was I the dream?
Wasn’t the snake pretend?
He was a stone snake
that touched without touching,
kept burning his touch into
my mind until my mind
could not hold form. He
was a stone rising from the pit
of a fire, never not rising up.
My own mind became a ghost,
and everyone saw. He was blurred,
he unwound and unwound
and unwound. Did he become
my mind? I could not see
him when I looked at him.
He was rain. He was fire.
I squinted, he shapeshifted.
He had never touched me
with holiness. That was
a dream. Such a long dead
dream. I tried to talk. I
talked and talked and talked.
My talking unwound into
an aura he slid along
and through like a horse
that’s not a horse. Like
a snake through its own skin.
Through me, into me,
superimposed over my mind,
inside my organs. Colonizing
the very rhythm of my heart
beating in my chest while I slept
and he fondled me or himself.
I could not escape his unwinding.
My life blurred. “Some snakes
burn everything they touch.”
published in Ottawa by above/ground press
February 2017
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy
Sarah Fox lives in NE Minneapolis, and is the author of Because Why and The First Flag, both published by Coffee House Press. She is a teacher, astrologer, worker, writer, placenta encapsulator, artist, resister, and a grandmother.
To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, add $2) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9 or paypal at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com
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