POEM
Ad Hominem
The Poet:
Fugitive lung, prodigal intestine—
where’s the pink crimp in my side
where they took you out?
The Octopus:
It must be a dull world, indeed,
where everything appears
to be a version or extrapolation
of you.
The birds are you.
The springtime is you.
Snails, hurricanes, saddles, elevators—
everything becomes
you.
I, with a shift
of my skin, divest my self
to become the rock
that shadows it.
Think of when
your reading eyes momentarily drift,
and in that instant
you see the maddening swarm of alien ciphers submerged within the text
gone before you can focus.
That’s me.
Or your dozing revelation
on the subway that you are
slowly being
digested. Me again.
I am the fever dream
in which you see your loved ones
as executioners. I am also their axe.
Friend, while you’re exhausting
the end of a day
with your sad approximations,
I’m a mile deep
in the earth, vamping
my most flawless impression
of the abyss
to the wild applause of eels.
Source: Poetry (December 2008).
This poem originally appeared in the December 2008 issue of Poetry.
BUY THIS ISSUE »
Nicky Beer is the recipient of a literature fellowship from the National Endowment for the . . . MORE »
