Nervosa

not fey. psychotic but compliant.
on a long afternoon without remedy,
the mind is arabesqued to fuck, is skittish
and anaesthetised by turns. she turns,
assumed into the catabolic dusk head first.
to be broken down. rain, and light. the street
in profile. neat skeletal executions. dread.
not fey. an erupted presence. lances
grey interiors, tears in skin. mended
fences. suppurates inside misogynised
routines. these gorgon curiosities,
whose eyes are neither nest nor
void. and if she were the slim white
hinge between two men, what of it?
weren’t we all? disposable things, looked
at without lust. sallied through ponderous
squats in silk kimonos, soaking up more
of the same vile brilliance. the druggy
air swept through us. girl as hollow
as a coke-cored biro. girl as mule,
as litmus or as sponge. not fey. suspended,
both stupefied and voyaging. the punk
assault of pheromones. a moving waste,
wasting. poise that any parent might
applaud. ghost. emerging or receding.
a spectral rejoinder. i say to myself:
the heart has its chocolately corruptions,
oh yes, its schlocky counterfactuals.

The typos

elite spaces swallow you.  join john, in the petrified
forest. or tutor light through opaque skins in gated
squares. you’re scarcely tethered, teacher. your body
knows. the leathery enfoldment of a london night,
the very sky affixed to your astringent purpose. waste
not. see yourself doing, as if these jaundiced
corrugations might advance the plot. a boy with eyes
like bedsores, picking the crust from himself, out-
patient at a hawksmoor church, says spare any change?
but for the grace. when mercy is the contents
of a pocket, turned. eczematic lichens terraform his
face. elite spaces swallow you. but this is fucking
stooge-work. the shallow haircuts know: grim
fidgeteer, emeritus whore. want not. crusty. not
anymore. imagine a shallow niche in this crypt,
your coat of arms tacked to the door. this morning,
marking papers, saw grouse appliquéd to the frozen
ground. a commercial for malt whiskey. studied you
minutely, then one yanked upwards with a tearing
sound as if against its will. this ecstatic chancing
haunts you still. elite spaces shit you out. you’re reading
harry fainlight, spidering this landscape like a junkie
john clare. itemise your own effacement. sitting at
the window, waiting for the voices out of accident or air.

Image © Thomas Hawk