A Quickness Which My God Hath Kist

Corpsing in last grass the cold
killed deer unlusty lies,
collected flesh deep dinner
for instant ants, flanks flyrich,
bloodquiet belly maggot profounded.
A brace of wolves in wander, family,
rips raspberries of blood with jaws in join.
Supplicating antlers in cold complexity,
deer earlydoomed lies subtracted
by precise parabola of sightsinging rifle;
his late geography, the trees,
treewood and doloring leaves in green twitter.
Alone with death the deer darkens daisies,
fleshfolds hosting insect eating disorders.

Squeegee Man

My face is sidewalk
printed with the cities
that left me in weather.
My pants stay up with stolen rope.
If I own soul
it radiates tatters
that stitch my skin
together by inference.
My ache is open but unseen.
I was aborted to begin with,
but it did not hold.
I count my fingers when I wake up
on the floor of morning.
Ten are all I need:
five to hold the ancient paper
of coffee-to-go
(it already went),
five to salute the shoepolish
of the god of giving
who will not mix his eyes
with mine.
I am the simplicity
of skeleton.
Be careful when
you meet me in the mirror.
When I am gone, the world

Ben Passikoff is a retired engineer. His poems have appeared in The Quarterly Review of Literature, the Atlanta, Harvard, Kennesaw, Sarah Lawrence and Texas Reviews, Literal Latte, Orbis, Pedestal Magazine and a truckload of other journals. His pursuits are poetry and survival.

Email: Ben Passikoff

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