Sex at Forty-Five

by rob mclennan

If grace, it could be elongated
to the point of the grotesque –
Elizabeth Robinson, Carrington

This is to draw thick black lines around existence, with one small corner
left blank for a different resolution.
Susanne Dyckman, “OMEN”

 

Retreat, into the body. Lexical. Dark side of my tongue. What
you seek of. Formulated.

Interrupted, rupture.

The nightly juke-box of the baby’s breathing, intermittent cries. We
hold collective breath.


Each silence,        opportunity.


The body, like a theatre. Translated. Distance, is a chorus.

Earth and sky. A single hair that drips.

 

 

Manifold, and muscled. Treble clef. Illiteral, the singularity
of this, and you.

Is there a way to measure? Words

we’ve yet to learn. The comforter. Concerto. A nest
of bedframe; warm.

A sound, a scope. Such common genre. Bled.

Such reason,                                           cast. Enmeshed.

The benefits, incalculable.

Many branches in the tree. A thought drilled out to talk.

 

 

Tendon. Caught, in the throat. Into the eyes like sleep.

Such introspection. Misses the point.

Chimes of ready-rising, thirst. Ice water, nightstand.

If zero marks the place.

The sky, divided. Equal portions.

 

 

Dark, and too slow. Familiar. This,                 the comfort. Limbinal:
of snaking limbs. The ears we lend, unmake.

How, we further: lines our hands should tremble.

Below, the wheels. What’s winged? Uncertainties, syllabled. Warbled, air

                              and broadcast.

Shouldered law. Declined, I suddenly. Discarded socks. The slightest chance.

We do not think in sentences. Magnificent silence.

No longer only skin.

 

 

Nestled, in. A mouth of fairness,

bordering on tenor. Occasional, orchestrated. Almost scheduled,
given household. Toddler rustles, gently.

Did you start the dishwasher? Pull the clean laundry?

An age of certain-somethings; a tension. Pilfered,

              quake, and shatter.

Damn your lyrics, your pretty abstracts: we want details.

 

 

As each division fades. Fingers, rubbing. Words.

The music of the pulse: it walks                            all over.

Sex at Forty-Five is out of print from The Blasted Tree Store

Featured by The Blasted Tree: October 6, 2017


rob mclennan

Contributing Author

Other works on The Blasted Tree:


Sex at Forty-Five by rob mclennan is a Blasted Tree original poem

Edition of 50 leaflets published in Canada

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