JOSEPH MAINS

Constitution

West Texas town. Mouth-dry
you say you’re from.
Church-dark: hanging ghosts
voice like pear & pine.
The distance keeps folding
sometimes at my feet the echo
is you.

.

.

.

Shopkeep: But will you make the winter?

But I’ll tie a swallow-knot around winter.
End of the planked gulf-quay:
I’ll drown it. Just below the surface
its eyes        wan reflect
viscous sour honey-life

running down its chin.

*

Penhole camera, corner room.
Texas drawl smiles like a clavicle
trying to keep still
and filled as a citizen
of the world’s final superpower.

*

Darkroom and you’re always
getting ready. Coffee eyes
below surface, developer rippling
over viscous life. A look, blurred, looped
down
a dark-sunk stone.

*

Stomach of the city. As the cutting rock
laced the skin        for a moment
every flower burned by itself.

.

.

.

Joseph Mains is native to the Sonoran desert. The author of To Live Don’s Life: A Film in 15 Creams, his current work appears in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Shampoo, Anti-, Sawbuck, Poor Claudia, Tammy, Peaches & Bats, and others. He lives in Portland.

About these ads