from ‘Though We Bled Meticulously’

Josh Fomon

Intensely morning           this face in the broken

 
fire—the harsh portrait of words
 

smashing. How will the air receive
our crumbling?

 

I spent the entirety of my youth ministering to my open sores. The grid underneath my skin maps a breath in motioned time. Pulsar invariable. The stray passenger between lives and people—beginning to drone. Wet, dark warm. It was all flowers blooming in the veins. Pure quadrants of direction—solstice of orogeny. I connected my selves to other selves and the dark things they do. It was here between the arts I took my first bride and buried my vows in my forearm. The state had formed under my breath through my eyes—the world brightened in sharp drowning noise. I tongued through the air a green moisture in her aroma. She took my shadow and left me disconnected to the feet I had compassed. Errant erratic. Exact aperture of misunderstanding. I pled constantly to save my life.

 

Across the sky as the broad sword on fire.
 

To have a culpability. The dirty calm
striations. The sun hue struck

 

wisps in clouds. I had learned how to mouth my name.

 
 

Call this a way out.

 
 
—-
 
 

Originally from Iowa City, Josh Fomon lives in Seattle where he edits the art journal Depaser with Colin Post and Burke Jam. His book THOUGH WE BLED METICULOUSLY is forthcoming from Black Ocean in spring 2016. His poems appear or are forthcoming in alice blue review, Caketrain, Deluge, DREGINALD, Handsome, jubilat, pallaksch. pallaksch., and others.