the breeding of strawberries

a tour of silhouettes holds your name in its mouth. 

summer’s grooves begin to wilt in the hands of the sun, with only travel and light remaining. north carolina is drowning. the whole of night dresses in your skin like dust or exhaustion mimicking the materialization of song: inevitable clay from a sunken brain. we become dolls we become houses lost in glass. 

we, all of us, are just visiting. shadows shaking,

hands.  

the imagination of the rose

for Leonard Cohen

a solid sky weeps
for its lack. 

everything is foliage
everything is desire.

a higher beauty washing itself
deflowers grace.

all horrors are only
half remembered

breeding laughter
and scraping the conjured

the breeding of strawberries and the imagination of the rose were initially published in Lachlan J. McDougall’s D.O.R. Issue 3, in 2023.