Poems
by Ross
McCleary
Everything Was Perfect Thank You
we are greeted by a disrespectful blonde
who brings us menus
stuffed-crust resentment, animus aperitivo
anything can be eaten if you are determined,
if you refuse to send it back.
Taste is not scent or flavour
it is temper, ricochets, lucid dreaming
she brings us bread soaked in fear and
we eat apologetic,
are deserving of less.
She is exhaustion
and we are exhilarated
by crossed wires
our stomachs as liminal spaces
mistakes buried in the lining of our guts
excavated by archeologists a thousand
years from now, they will ask
why we did not point out her mistake
because to do so would shrink everything
in every mistake is
the possibility of another world
a better and more forgiving place
Veins
The lines on my hands are
veins on a leaf and
out the window
the trees in the garden
a garden I never use
slow dance to a song
from my dreams.
I hear it
Those overlapping tones
building churches from the rhythms
hollowed out trunks filled with congregation
with choir circles and amber-encrusted
articles of faith
an ecclesiastical encore
all of life itself yet
the books on my shelf spell out a
betrayal of lost siblings
rotting corpses
the remnants of my veins
the last pulses before the whispers stopped
I place my palms up
new whispers tell me to close my eyes
turn my palms towards them
put hands on the glass
and pray.
Career
I could have a glittering career as
someone who doesn’t
know the layout of our bedroom
the star of a romcom about not knowing where the pans
in the kitchen go
I’m majestic and revered
I am reknown for this
for my capacity to live so rooted
in a disfunctional present that
I cannot see the ghosts
that are keeping us from sleep
they dance in the windowpanes
sliding back and forth like subroutines
waiting for their cue to enter
