Issue 2:1 | Poetry | Wesley Biddy

HOMECOMING AND THE HOST By Wesley Biddy

September haze. Breathe,

breathe—

sacred...

this is the approach of the approach of splendor.

Jukebox spurting rusty flakes of blood and years

into the grease-glutted air,

music spiders through the veins

on silken legs of memories—

like opium, like foxfire—

that drug and bewitch the soul.

We glare at the moon,

his sunken eye-pits,

gaping bowl of a mouth,

and deliberate:

why does he just sit there and wail like that?

It is a terrifying thing to see a rock

crawl into the sky and become a mirror.

Smoke weaving its nets overhead:

(shhh:)

the cigarettes burn like a kiss,

scarred marascino cherry

crucified to its meal of weeds

in those holy inches just beyond the lips.

Our eyes lock and the warmth defies metaphor;

this return from long exile,

this near-sacrament—

who would blaspheme with poetry

what should be canonized with silence?

Breathe,

breathe—

eyelids’ flutter becomes pages:

the unutterable alphabet of dreams.

Wesley Biddy