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.