poem || Jeff Harrison

Silk Compass

derelicts darken everywhere, costumed Medusa,
volcanoes that were death for hillsides to imagine
the sun flutters in your curled paws
- a crash of craft -

a paragraph halved at the hinges, with a scootch of art
nations cough out a drizzle of the nearly-human
their thrones freckled with Calibans
- shy as a riddle -

their lips bend childhood down a lichened course
weightless as rot, puzzling as a parchment blip
and as anachronistic, plus "and as"
- a moon-stiff stain -

enough of this silk compass talk, thank-voiced mutts!