By: Celine Low

Saturday Night Fever

We sit, boozy livers and light heads
talking late,
making fat sounds falling flat
into the carpet,
glasses sweating on the table. One moment
looms large, the
red
lava lamp
bleeding
onto our faces: which one of us
shot himself with a finger gun
and laughed,
while in another
room another friend snores, oblivious
to the shadow that patted us on the cheek, and
ran away.

###

Poets

If clowns are the saddest creatures,
poets are the happiest fools.

If you wonder
why they’re often dressed
in woe, it is because this make-up

of tears marks
the rare occasion when a burst
of feeling survives the struggle,

like a child running naked
from her itchy Sunday dress—
the poet running

hot and dishevelled on her heels—
and is caught

and spanked
and wrestled
into words.

###

 
Parkinson’s, Stage Four

Beside my bed an old fading picture: she, veiled
white against my black suit, we stand
back against the world.

I gave her my world. She was not afraid
to take it. She made it
hers. I seeded her garden

with kisses and silver and the strength
of my limbs. She grew
fat. And I grow

reversed, sinking back
to earth, limbs sick
with black spots.

Sometimes the head shakes, cries
against my will. I will
be dead soon. When I began

to wet the bed she began
to need her own space.
On the bed I’m still

leaving a hole
for her in the crook
of where my arm was.

###
 
Liberation

Voices drowning
as we cheer, patting ourselves
on the back, pleased with our liberation
of the oppressed. We will keep
our symbols to ourselves. Thus we will keep
our culture.

Here’s to the clink
of wine glasses surrounding
ourselves with our own
image: we,

eyes closed
as if in ecstasy;
paragon of righteousness

in a fish bowl,
furiously jerking
off into a mirrored wall.