Brainer
This blanched anteroom’s irksome,
A shrine to Edison ’s trails
With cats and dogs.
Squishy seals, a queasy camera-lens.
Crabbedness of scalding muscle.
Water-salt that sopped electrodes
Is dust. You have passed into a frame.
The body streams
As life empties.
(from the Electric Chair poems)
Christopher Barnes won a Northern Arts writers award in 1998. Each year he reads for Proudwords lesbian and gay writing festival. His first collection of poems Lovebites is published by Chanticleer.