Poetry | Colin Dekeersgieter

When I hear the voice that woke me with a hand over my mouth, 

humming Psycho Suite or The Imperial March, my throat closes up 

 

and I have to rush off the thought of some last tolerant god to relearn 

the physics of swallowing I love myself I love myself I love myself.

 

Though I've done nothing to ease the world. As a child, the voice 

tried to balance out the earth, bringing soil from the garden 

 

to the island’s roots loosed in the fast panache of a hurricane. 

Still, it laughed more than it cried. We laughed more than we fought 

 

but not by much, which doesn't mean much. When I confessed 

I killed the man-o-war and the voice asked if it had a face, I only said no 

 

because I was thinking of its hands. I have always looked to hands.

I only know what I still see: its rotund plea, its pleated crest  

 

like a bloated sailfish with its dorsal fin array all astray, bereft

of any will to lollygag or dash or bat its placeless eyes 

 

as I wrecked its bladder and listened to its pneuma seep. 

I want to see the world and all its seepage glitter thick like tar.

 

I want to keep opening wounds the aperture of stars in snails and oak

with salts and picks to see the strongest things contract and pulp. 

 

And I want to push a whale into the sand. We had such similar hands.

On the gurney, I note the breadth of purple beneath the muted teeth. 

 

I love myself I love myself and He loved me and He loved me.

The last time I saw him, the earth was beneath his fingernails.