ASPHYXIA
Benjamin Landry
It was a game they played with a plastic bag,
how they read the printed caution backwards,
the arch of associative trauma
like the unfastening of a train
through the small town at three AM,
no ear attuned to the indigo flail,
the whites of eyes in incognizant sockets,
the sough of the sow in the sawgrass
the moon on the mountain’s rim
Slivers of soap under her fingernails,
rust from the drain on the pad of his foot,
sympathetic slick in the vale of desire.
Whatever came to their grasping:
pleasant flowers and pill bottles,
bath mats and shaving brushes.
The birds that had been roosting
in the town green’s hooded espaliers