stickman review

Green Shower

by Richard King Perkins II

What you see is a single dimension—

one side of shadow
the broken hull of sunlight
a window crying out into complete darkness

then reducing to a murky calm
from the furthest southern foothills

seeping in through a crack in the wall.

I’m to blame for all the questions you have
about the other women

and the labyrinth of inattentiveness;

the stalks of moon shivering between us
and the things wrongly placed inside you—

but in that moment

a green shower of pleasure
splinters the lighted rooftop of an abode

cast from the skin and bones of lost divinity.

Sometimes,
it’s so good to remember I’m alive

even without the ability to believe

in dismal fables of belongingness.