Slice your uncut nail
.                                        across the cover
to justify craving
another. Deny               this dumb reason
.                                       you scratch moons
into the face
.                                       of Hunger, gusty
Knut Hamsun an ex
left. Her sheets             of telltale skin un-
.                                       folded you, the rain-
bow zodiac of her
.                                       solar plexus inked
above tentacles
tugging a ship               untold depths. Deepen
.                                       your mark: ply a bone
knife. Gut words
.                                       worthless. You maul
volumes for the thrill
of boundless prices      to peel. Your scabs
.                                       itch. You require
new titles to plot
.                                       against. Your book
arrived a mess of art-
less packaging              and filled with hexes
.                                       that reeked of semen,
torn out origami
.                                       hearts and cursive
hair stuffed back in
a rush. Remember       halfway to Folly
.                                       Beach when a juvenile
heathen you loved
.                                        to lay out Happy
Meals on pictures
of Noah’s Ark                 and break each fry
.                                        in half to have two?
As flash floods
.                                       upturned the blood-
logged Black Belt
carving a shadow          arc to the Atlantic
.                                        like God’s own
piss mark you felt
.                                        stuck in it ages
with leviathans
abreast the minivan.    Each drop jammed
.                                        time and the wind-
shield’s road movie
.                                       went static, the trip
a paradox between
states, a Welcome           wavering. Ma blew
.                                      smoke. You licked salt
from your fingers,
.                                      used your worn hand-
-me-down white-
belted taekwondo gi   for a napkin. Bit
.                                       a nail sharp, stabbed
lion eyes and lamb,
.                                       snake and the forsaken
pterodactyl but let
all swimming things   live lives of seeing
.                                       in your apocrypha.
In your daydream
.                                       you stowed away
awaiting the sun
to cue your flying        kick through the keel
.                                       and the hole to gulp
the sea and the sea
.                                       to gulp the conceited
zoo. You pretend
to read better now,      know many bones are dis-
.                                       articulate missives
of missed contexts
.                                       and ghosts are dolls
cut from godawful
autobiographies           floating atop dark
.                                       histories. If you
have a beginning,
.                                       middle and an end
you have a whole
and if the whole           has roof and walls
.                                       and voices to fog
memory it is more
.                                       or less a house-
boat, sinkable. From
the distance of sun-     sets, masts burning
.                                       can recall pages
turning. Your boy-
.                                       hood Book of Genesis
is pulp and rainfall
since has echoed          flames as your eyes
.                                       close those decades.
Go wreck. Go re-
.                                       construct. You borrow
each passage
and another pen         will in the end
.                                      mark your fabled X
in a spot far under-
.                                      water. Relish your salt.
This ancient story
wormholes any-         body, and you
.                                      forgot karate.

***

Matthew Bruce’s writing has appeared in journals such as West Branch and At Length and Cincinnati Review. He’s from Georgia, USA, but now lives, more or less, in Minnesota.