ADAM TEDESCO
In our aquatic phase we found a safety net in the circuit of dust around the moon and back
And that all the words for crooked
came before what was here before
Sycamore’s curled leaf teasing a hint of hands
to hold the axe
My body the handle
You will push flat
like nuclear wind and shadows
where we return the lungs to rest
breaking off
into everything we missed
to see the laziness of who we are in all the words past love that mushrooms gave us
Are you ready to be left alone
with what you are
outside the body
A wet grey moses down the nile
where all the trees are you
And the wind is you
And the salt is you
And the snakes are you
We are a tidy bow on water
fucking up this flower’s face
in our study of basket weaving
for a stupid time
of tar and fear
Still
There is a fish in each of us swimming to the surface
This is it
It’s happening
some cells divide
as others die
and maybe some see around the bend
the curvature of time
to know the foam beneath
or hear the exhortation
to live humbly in its presence
Because it’s a fact
that constellations are selves
in the ways we place faith and power
in the places we can’t fill with patterns
And it’s the law
that you must love yourself
as much as the pedestrian
in the crosswalk
that every day
with small lies
we break
Adam Tedesco is a founding editor of REALITY BEACH, a journal of new poetics. He conducts interviews and analyzes dreams for Drunk In A Midnight Choir. His recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Fence, Funhouse, Fanzine, Gramma, Pouch, Hobart, Plinth and elsewhere. He is the author of several chapbooks, most recently HEART SUTRA, and ABLAZA (Lithic Press).
Their favourite conspiracy theory is the shared belief that any of this is real. We have never proved it not to be a dream, not to be the space between some good othernesses.