To break the iamb, or to split the atom,

to squeeze the cosmos to an alder bud

of sweat, to make monument of all

space, time, and sound,

one must be without fear, so I,

who have been electric with fear, and who goes with such

trepidation that my brain tugs at my tongue’s jodhpurs

while every candle I bear

shudders and expires,

who understood how Lot’s wife could be a column

of salt and returned to the bluffs nightly,

(reasoning that salt was of great value,

and to be a Thing for another was far greater

than to be a Human Being for selfish reasons)

                     expecting,

                     waiting,

                     anticipating,

          only to stumble down again

                                 more flesh and blood than

         when I left,

will sink into this warm and gracious twilight,

(ice pick rolling in the sink, ice melting by imperceptible shades)

indifferent to the names

of flowers dropping from the trellis or

the name of this cold and eerie shade of teal,

to think of

              nothing, pure as glacier water,

a brighter tomorrow through the frontal lobe.

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Patrick O'Reilly is a poet, critic, and archivist from Renews, NL, now living in Montreal. His first chapbook, A Collapsible Newfoundland, was published by Frog Hollow Press in 2020.