Alm 11

by Seth McKelvey

slipknotted snares drizzling down
from the sky beneath

might the darkness
pierce?

a field of nooses hanging down
like so many fishhooks beneath
a busy pier, bobbing in the dense
afield, waiting

my nooses, waiting
for me

I fashioned these knots with my own
knuckles, fisherman’s fingers
hardened by these schemes

copper snares, wire looted from now
abandoned temples like unspooled veins,
hot worked and drawn

my nooses, waiting
for me

I coil the wire around my
fingers, soul’s electrician,
wrap it around my

neck


the copper begins to glow, incandescent
but not quite bulblike
only the candlescent of my burning aroma

perhaps I underestimated the
current,
or resistance, or both

the filaments ignite, burning
handiwork around my neck

my nooses