Crystal Snoddon: Poetry and other Lamentations

Pause for breath

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Photo Credit: Jude Infantini

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Everyone Knows

There is no shame in typographical errors,

in misreading the underscored lines

surrounded by blank margins.

Everyone knows there is no blame

in your position buckled behind the wheel,

stopped at the railroad crossing lights.

The road brought you here.

Do not be startled to see your name

trussle past in graffiti scrolls, your history flow by

in boxcar visions, biographic flashes -

crooked candles plunged in white icing,

a wish in grey wisps,

the smack-sting of finger lines left to cool,

revert to the color of soft skin,

whispered flesh grasped in spasms,

gut-punch certainty - your body

can be mortgaged,

blood spurts in vermillion,

a glistening wrist,

musty-salt mucus on lips, the first kiss

of a newborn forehead

Trust glints in rusty corners.

Everyone now sees how a windpipe

crushed beneath a lover’s fingers

retains dimpled impressions,

gasps of dominance, of occupation.

A train whistle carries on the wind.

A clouded sky, full of everyone.

For your own good you take your medications,

chant the therapeutic rhymes taught by shamans.

Dislodge your solar plexus by increments,

loosen the fusion of cranial bones,

this freight, by vibration.

Wait to wave at the end of the train.

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published in Punch Drunk Press, October 19, 2018

https://punchdrunkpress.com/2018/10/19/everyone-knows-by-crystal-snoddon/