5.26.23

Crosshatching my little canker

into nest egg little oxygen tank

shame that artifices uncanny

resemblance between canker & nest

nest egg & tank

that ciphers desire into sore

sweat into reek into filth

The face of the sun glares me wet

& slipping out my knotted seminary if only

for a moment mutation body

consuming its own mass to contort its codes

to read sweat different

than filth or filthy & sweet gross & so obviously necessary

Some perimeters take years to recognize

as false not a closed circuit but breathing whorl

4.04mi | 38:07


Phil Spotswood is a poet from Alabama, and a PhD Creative Writing candidate at Illinois State University. His most recent work can be found in Berkeley Poetry Review, Always Crashing, and Dreginald. He is a poetry reader for Spoon River Poetry Review, and Senior Editorial Assistant for Obsidian.