by Mathew Yates

 

nerve-raw as ever you saw,
busted up blue & blooded

like the catfish on the dock,
like the predawn stumble of a

cooper’s hawk hatchling unto the underbrush,
thrust into a corner the color of sky,

falling even on the ground, buried alive
in clouds & condensation & rain,

the mud-flooded drain at the end of the street,
fear-stuck as you’ve ever been struck,

up to your chest in shadow & muck,
there is a cavern in a chasm underneath

the earth, where if you think alone long
enough, you can transform into dirt, or,

curled up green like a seed, you can
reach for the sun like a newborn weed,

or, nerve-raw, fear-struck, full-wept
as you’ve ever been swept, unsleeping like

a burnt log in a bog from an unanswered
sacrifice, like the corpse in the cress,

feeling like the first to ever feel a thing,
full on frightened, stuck-eye on the wall,

you can stagger in place
to no place at all,

rigid as the ridden obsession,
ragged as the wrong-turn road,

crumpled up & creased like the crust of the earth,
& fetched further in yearning than river for rock,

than shiver & shock for a comfortable body,
than the quivering stop for the start of a cry,

rigid as the soaring wing,
ragged as the last flooded dale,

here to take to task the rake
for refusing to let dead leaves decay,

here to worship the maggots in your wounds
for keeping you company in a lonely world,

to keep company in a lonely world
can be a kind of necromancy,

a kind of return, a way back, a recollection,
nerve-raw & rigid, ravenous, in fact

 

 

 

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Mathew Yates (they/them) is a disabled poet & artist from Paducah, Kentucky with roots in Mississippi & Appalachia. Their poetry & art can be found in Protean Mag, Ghost City Review, Malarkey Books, Barren Magazine, & more. They live in Indianapolis. They are on Twitter @m_yates on twitter and their website is mathewyates.com.