Joseph in wood grain, Joseph
in curtain crease. A tiny Joseph waving
from the fronds of a spiny succulent
given as an engagement gift,
a symbol of longevity.
The kitchen light has started flickering;
I think Joseph is in the wires,
stuttering his hellos while I’m slicing
pickles, my fingers dripping with acid.
Joseph is getting under my skin,
a skelf burrowing through
dermis, muscle, fat,
carving a route to my bones.
Can he tell the two ribs
that buckled to pneumonia?
Simple fractures that healed
slightly wrong and now,
if I touch them too long or too deeply,
I feel I could throw up my soul,
or whatever it is in the middle of us
that hovers – I imagine it
a sort of wormhole, black and very absorbent,
a pinprick in time, entrance
to a slightly different dimension.
If Joseph was a Halloween decoration
he’d be one of the clean-cut
glow-in-the-dark bats we’ve left hanging
long past the spooky season;
a remnant, a translucence
existing at the periphery
of the present tense