WHERE FLOWERS GIVE BIRTH TO SNOW

By Courtenay Schembri Gray

To the calling smudge I wake;

a pearl between lumps of cotton.

I bunch myself as a spider would.

Brooding, I eat my bowl of bad news.

Time moves like phases of the moon,

peeling the walls from coarse plinths.

Above me, the kites want for their shriek of meat,

split from the bone.

Like poets bartering for the blood of an index.

But I am a landscape that knows no such frenzy.

The kites play scrabble with my organs,

saving the heart for one final blow.

I am dragged back into catatonia,

eyes bouncing; marbles of worlds.

Am I now an offer,

a numbered lottery ball?

Do I roll with the dreamers,

with the ship of riches?

On my back I lack contrition;

the unforgiving light goring the shadow.

They have me now,

at the root, full of holes.

I am to protect the winter of their lives,

where flowers give birth to snow.

#darkpoetsclub