Joshua Marie Wilkinson
Phantoms, Uncollected
easier without
the machete
in the tobacco
with dogs
keeping the kettle
safe. Worm
paths leak
what we haven’t
ourselves found
a way to hide.
Our work is
fearless, staunch
even cinematic,
though the
laughter marks
us with its
powdery gloves.
Phantoms, Uncertain
forbidding, not
swept into
the fan gears
rats tarrying
pulling the blankets
through
the basement
insulation
gobs of pink
fiberglass, won’t
you listen, like
this, with your
eyes on the page,
dream up the
coal pigeons,
badgers on
the asphalt,
a city returning
itself via letter
to its own
post office
chutes & scales.
Poem for ZBS
We’re in the mall lot
as you’re telling me
the story of being back in
Omaha, even if only to
wave from the night road
to deer & mammoths
lifting up from the stage
beams & long ropes
nearly alive with a bit
of pond gleam in the retina
as your monsters slip from
cartoon to mongrel & listen
to your blood in the morning.
What do we know about love
or rotting off? We got splitting
& the lush pull of an other down
to the point of frothed madness—
Out on your porch or up
in the supermarket checkout line,
a friend of a friend’s phantom likeness
to keep your longing checked,
crossed, or maybe just trenched in?
What else have we got to cower from
the pursuit of? Shadows plus
a socketed dream of what come over us.
Joshua Marie Wilkinson lives in Tuscon, AZ.