I prowl the canal,
sprawl like spilled oil.
Time is acid on my boots.
Thoughts blur and fail,
no longer words but sounds
I haul into the night
as I go through the shuttered town,
shivering along damp gutters,
letting out yelps.
Need and want.
When one hollow fills, another howls.
The shadow in my gut is forever
sifting light from fire.
Women, who see me,
approach like wounded wolves
that have left bloodtrails for the moon.
Their heads are children
I hold in my lap.
Men close their ears, they take
their oxygen down into sleep
beyond the blue fingertips of the sun
where they think I don’t go.
Where stars’ teeth turn black, waiting.
Peter Yovu
.