P h i l S p o t s w o o d —

7.29.23

A cloud

of ants

breaks across

my bonejut chest

the gelatinous day

smeared as swarms of fat

What ectoplasm trains

my motion?

the suggestion of bushes

fuses into men

I’m afraid

to qualify but who

veer me down

the street regardless

drunk in mourning who

lies buried

in the pileup

my eye it blinks out & out

4.37mi | 41:03

11.6.23

The knotted shoulders brace

for impact with streetside

angels upending

themselves (at the whirr of the knell) as the underside

of plaqued asphalt a once-living stream bled out

to feed the green

of my sheared lawn

Clamoring in loss’ wake

ambulatory into being

connective tissue with

angelguts so full

of the conditions for life

to be streaming or dammed or bridged or flooding

Somewhere a phone buzzes awake

one hundred billion neurons

minus one keyed to the tone of

your face catalyzing one hundred billion and one

3.51mi | 35:49

11.12.23

Colossal swaying

hawk on thin evergreen

limb turbines wind &

clears ground as grace

for uncertainty to play

ever under threat of power

lines jamming the deep blue

In the held

open field

one body exposed

to another as a series

of questions left

to flower & fruit

.

4.30mi | 39:52