Page 70 - The Woven Tale Press Vol. IV #9

Seizure
My soul fades
To magnificent yellow-orange.
Lachesis: Even the name
Is a stone between the teeth,
What kind of master Measures this life?
The crunch of an old molar Cast into a bucket of rot.
So many dreams, So many chill drafts
Does the warm moss of day remind us Who we are? Or does it take that from us
Through a sliver of door Behind which wings explode,
Carelessly, casting the cold, Northern shadow Of what will be?
Familial, from a damp living wall. Once, the dark took my hand
Only when people fall
Do they learn to be worthy.
To skin me and carry my Jesus dreams. I bit my tongue.
And—Eleison!—the earth Shall take me as its quiet meal.
Drink the dark slowly.
It will stopper your throat if you don’t.
Drop by drop
You become its stalagmite.
Stand proud of all that
You have swallowed and survived.
You’ve passed into stone— Voila! Behold! No Houdini, no trained dog,
Ever did this. And they tried.
A decade after death they kept trying,
Untying knots, blunting
Fate’s scissors. The trick is: You can’t.
Thorne’s poetry has been published in over thirty literary journals including The Potomac Review, The Atlanta Review, and Yemassee.
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