The earth now is bitten till it is swelling and
curled lips beyond the house where
I grew and will not let you fade, or it:
beyond the lamp, beyond the reddened hearth –
your lowering. You went and bought
tools that wheeze and break the frost
so that the soil cracks like a nut and
reveals all its eyeless gods, who remain
wound up deep and down
below the fields: the feeding roots
of great oaks, the caustic bit
of swelling beyond the house
where I grew.
We have sought to ascend: I
and the land, and the ochre
sprinkled on the stones beside
the doorstep where the summer bees
crept in the flowers – the feral soil
made as if to rise with the heat
and glut, the gross leavening
of a season in wait of stillbirth, or
how the newfound empty becomes
exacting in the clatter of
shredded bark upon the pavement
of curled lips that grew me
beyond the house.
I grew and will not let your fading out
of doors, not to nestle with
the dust by the road, not the plunging of cars,
not to weave between them. The doors
are heavy wood, and grant the wind
no dignity save lament to fall
tepid on the doorstep and its stones
or scrape the swell of land where I
offered up my final myth to dress
and cover you beyond the house
where I grew.
—
Ben Meyerson currently resides in Toronto, Canada. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in journals such as Epignosis Quarterly (via Black Herald Press), Masque & Spectacle, Axolotl, and Gnarled Oak, and he has a chapbook entitled “In A Past Life” forthcoming with The Alfred Gustav Press in 2016.
Photo by: Ana Prundaru