Chris Emslie

TALL IN THIS ROOM

I asked the internet to hold me together.
Maybe it wants to talk feminism

or the occult sometime. Maybe it prays
to be noticed too. Burnt orange

& lonely, a wild spread of cards.
Look him in the cheekbone it says,

all six feet of him romantic as a garbage
chute. I threw a dart skyward. I put

a hole in the sun. Nothing in nor out—
just light for the sake of lacking it,

a votive for the end of love, one gold
paramour dredging the ocean.

Chris Emslie is assistant editor at ILK. His poems have appeared / are forthcoming in Birdfeast, Banango Street and Whiskey Island, among others. He lives in a mutable space between Scotland and Alabama, where he curates large swarms of feelings.