by Jon Hoel
Corpse paint must feel good on the skin.
And, what with the mood these days,
cold is in our best interest. Without warning
death comes to my street. Loss happens later,
never during. The tongue flickers at the hole,
massaging the absent tooth. Filling it with porcelain.
Best understood as a split tooth, this new therapist
says I am a dissident toddler rejecting comfort objects.
It’s all true, everything they say about me, decathected.
Juniper bugs on the coniferous edge yellow the leaves,
making a mess. All your stomach knots pull tighter,
and the descent is the same from every height.
It’s the native varieties. My enormous aspirations
and the heavy length of my limbs. I mostly stay still
at the creek, rooting lousily around the meadow.
______
Jon Hoel is a poet and critic from New England. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming with Black Lawrence Press, Denver Quarterly, Liverpool University Press, Massachusetts Review, Pittsburgh Review of Books, and Protean Magazine.
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