new from above/ground press: BODY BIRTH, by Evan Gray

BODY BIRTH
Evan Gray
$5

the field is the body

and the body is impregnated by tense

and the body hangs low, lower

and the windows enter here

and the frailer flannel body

not hard like a used body

and not reshaped like flattened iron

and not a blanket folded with static

stacks for the body begs for all

of poetry, a vile beginning

remaining only with legs

both a bat and both with legs

crawling as if this body

and in another dream that night my face washed in dew

my body

the body girdled with a reed

the body of the message of god

the body of gnashing teeth

the body with mind is now

for without the mind and ripples

slouching back but not romantically

for decay is with the mind

and with the body a shell

of a ghost of with a vapor

a body of perpetual disgrace

a body shut in a memory care unit

and the body is in the field now

and the body is a holler of denial

time and the body spits and chews

and the body aches and sings

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
February 2019
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Cover by Austin Blake Mays

Evan Gray is from Jefferson, North Carolina and is the author of two other chapbooks: Blindspot (the Rest (Garden-Door Press, 2018) and Dusk Melody (Shirt Pocket Press, 2019). His essays and poems have been featured in DIAGRAM, Tarpaulin Sky, Yalobusha Review, Word For / Word, and others. He currently lives and teaches in Pittsburgh, PA.

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; in US, add $2; outside North America, add $5) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9. E-transfer or PayPal at at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com