Nude in flux
Bold typed I filled the silver page
set in alchemical frame of wardrobe doors
post-shower and pre-afternoon.
Toady contours and pregnant boy jabs
howl to the grey window and rest
like something awful walking through
a house you grew up in. Sore
to the marrow. Sucked dry, panic eats.
A photograph is different, light bends
around my dense form. Skimmed milk, cleanse,
no milk, no meat, no rice, no bread.
Acid teeth. I cannot be in two places at once
but here I am, nude in flux – the man
staring into himself going on forever
fat and thin-legged and weak and irregular
as a broken heartbeat, a perfect tree.
George Sandifer-Smith is a Welsh writer. His poetry has been published in New Welsh Review, The Stockholm Review, The Lampeter Review, The Cadaverine, Black Sheep Journal and numerous anthologies. His first children’s book, Cholloo’s Birthday, was published by Lily Publications in 2014.