hospice

cold, unpitying sun, dropping in through the windowpanes
sullen as a truant, cast-off and browsing.
the light is unwelcome company, revealing your face like
a well-kept secret, white and masked by a cup of
oxygen – you are suckling again, overlarge infant,
crooked in the lap of the bed, eyes pacing slowly
under your dream-rimmed eyelids, like sleepless tyrants.
with every breath, you expel another moment,
another muttered minute, and the
O2 tank plucks it up
sharply.

those daisies
aren't lasting long. their heads drooping
like idiots: squint-eyed, gandering from the lips of the vase.
their brown-touched petals fall in such abundance
when you breath, and so I keep replacing them, and you keep breathing.
they are nodding, weary heralds. dipping, the sunlight pushing among them
like a boatman.

your face, collared blue,
your eyes retreating like a snails, shellward
until they leave only catacombs, ghastly chambers.
you don't cry anymore – I do it for you,
and you turn your head away and your hand
grows stiff, scaffolded with an index of loose bones,
hollow windchimes that make the quietest, most delicate
promises.

you
are a facsimile
skin sticky and color-changing, depending on my mood –
amphibian. cold, light-winded priestess, I bring you
news of the outside world: the blossoms are bowing their heads,
a wake for autumn, and the trees carelessly
toss out their leaves like handmedowns
south-bent birds unzip the sky, but somehow
the new daisies are holding out,
but
only just
barely –

they
emancipate their petals,
weeping for the loss of your pretty hair
mourning for the white choir
of your bones under
the bedsheets.

Reviews

[Juniper]

Heylo, Kylan!

A Kylan poem unreviewed? This happens far too much for my liking nowadays. Anyway, see, I haven't reviewed this yet, because the other night I couldn't think properly, and by the time I did it was 2 AM, and had to get off and whatnot, and the next day, I started on the review, and when I went to logon, the site was down and yadda yadda yay.

Okie, let's see!

Lots of times, I start reading poems of yours aloud for the first time, and sometimes, I come across a poem that just makes me smile by the end of the first stanza. It's like, your poems all begin well, yes, but there's something about these few (which would be cateloupe, apostasy, hospice, to name a few), that just pulls the reader further into the poem at the end of the first stanza than some other poems will get you by the end of the poem. (And I hope that makes sense?)

Anyway! Only nitpick for this [I think] would be:


� [their brown-touched petals fall in such abundance
when you breath, and so I keep replacing them, and you keep breathing. ]

- I think breath should be breathe, right?

- And, in the second line [and so I] kind of sounds pretty wordy, especially with another /and/ following in the same line; maybe if you cut out the /and/ and leave /so I/ or just /I/ to kind of... make it seem less (what's the word?) tight?

- -

These:


[the light is unwelcome company, revealing your face like
a well-kept secret, white and masked by a cup of
oxygen � you are suckling again, overlarge infant,
crooked in the lap of the bed, ]

&

[you turn your head away and your hand
grows stiff, scaffolded with an index of loose bones,
hollow windchimes that make the quietest, most delicate
promises.]

And the last stanza are gold. Don't change them; they're amazing. Epic, epic work here, Ky. I absolutely love this, the tone you created in words, the images you drew; as I said, it rivals apostasy. ;)

Juniper

[Emily B]

excellent work