Joanna Hope Bricher
BASIC ALCHEMY (IN WHICH I AM LEARNING TO BREATHE)
This sense, that my throat grows
hollower with every low tide, that in fearing
I break the promise, that I cannot let my hands slacken
in this valley, that there is no way
in the road, this emergency service neither
stop nor go, that
endless rivulets will cut
lines through the decades, that deeply mined
sighs leave scars, that loud is too solid to pass through, that
cytokines have drawn their chalk lines in me and defend them
with firepower, that I, empty statue, drained infrastructure,
need the permission slip signed and cannot get it, that these my
guests are
parasites,
that to read the post is peril and the
closed drawer is worse, that slagheap lumps of fossil
pack my arteries, that cliffs end hereabouts
and the night too dark to know, that I forgot the
incantation, that I swapped the diamonds for
a ration book, that no engines under 50cc may pass this point;
This is nothing, nothing at all to worry about. Because
in the future I took the precaution of
photographs, and these I keep
close, the holy rumour in my blanket chest displacing
camphor flung to a force nine, lights blinking
in an underpass, and somewhere here
there is ninety per cent pure gold and no gravity.