Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror, photo by Sarah Melanie Lopez

Atelectasis

between winter &
watermelon
a
chequering bottom
pool, swimming
to dream
in castlists
no name
shocks and fevers
hostage dramas.

looking down just like a Pieta then
up
for planes
for birds
for kites
or stars,
airs.
tempt me.

still hurts
to breathe
wondering
wondering
why why why

the corpse
of djinn,
the old families
inside lizards,
which day it was
he got in.

away ago
through an eye
plucked
gutted
a spiritual cousin
name of splinter
stopped
in the meat
of orbits,
lodged

a piece of bramble.
you tiny things.
you tiny societies.
you tiny tin-toothed.
buzzard keepers.
curs. bunch of curs.
no magic
nor curses left.
pockets dry.
amulets useless.
natural causes
might amaze you.
There might
be a stumbling.
a deflation.