Published September 15th, 2024
by A.T. Bull
Oh! How you call to me –
my most unnatural brother –
through chicken skins and bacon fat.
All that has become green and oily.
These scraps, unfit for a mouth
so cunning and gifted in tongues,
you sink low in the brackish waters
of my home.
Oh! How you call to me –
father of straight lines –
through barbed metal hooks.
Alien in density and precision.
These needles, unfit for a mouth
so simple and clumsy in function,
you sink deeply into the rubbery skin
of my cheek.
Oh! How you call to me –
great being of self-removal –
when you feel my slack weight.
A goddamn suckerfish on the line.
These games, unfit to mourn
the memory of our shared body,
are all that remain of the old ways
you have sunk within yourself.
But see me now as I am,
pulled gasping from dark waters
stars shining in the black pools
of my blank idiot eyes.
Wipe my slime upon your trousers
mind my stinging barbs my grasping tendrils
and before you curse me and toss me back
feel for a moment the world against your skin.
About the Poet
A.T. Bull resides in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Read the poet's biography on A.T. Bull's Artist Page.
This poem is included in Poetry World #10,
published in the Wax Poetry and Art Library.
Previously published in Toronto Poetry Magazine:
The Wolf
by Michael Bennett Leroux
Toronto Poetry Magazine is part of the Wax Poetry and Art Network.
- Visit the main Wax Poetry and Art Submissions Page to see all opportunities.
- Visit the Wax Poetry and Art Library.
- This website and all contents ©Kirk Ramdath and specified artists.
(Advertisements)