Four Poems

by Nathaniel Calhoun

convalescence

moisture blooms     ant pellets pile up     old walls weaken   

the cost of movement rises      months smudge together

potted plants distend      toward emissaries     of real air    

through screens     rainfall traces     and window stains     

white sky     layers deep      paper thin     holds its woolly

veils   |   blood brain barriers     bramble     heats waiver

beyond focus     restless with melting     attention hurts    

breath botched and wonky      freighted with dry air     

gripped past the sincerity of its gift     catches in greases

glitches stumbling   |   fake rain shimmers     in lymph

as little cysts     adverse gatherings     ganglia      micro-

factories     little omens     liver spots     immune systems

fight with darkness     by going blind   |   droplets stilled

on the window     from my steaming     or poor cleaning    

and their incoherence     hold vision inside the dwelling    

splitting it     waving it away and wearing it out     you

can blast holes     in the walls of your being     to eject

the parts     you feel that you must      and then     retire    

thinking you’re tough      and complete     speckled now

with access points      not just unguarded      but obscured

hazard a guess

life rafts claimed     the tilting deck     fills with grim

conclusions     in the foreground     between our eyes     

and the drowning     a soft sat upon paper     unfolds     

warm from pocket   |   you may come to words     for

anything     mystery      or anger     diversion and work    

to find out who     was pulled from water breathing

or courtship and soothing     or to be terrified     and

then soothed   |   mess     fracture and     complexity     

create a dread of sinking      launch lifeboats      lay

glue traps      let burrs loose   |   an insistent 40 knot

wind     won’t let you back to shore     will absolutely

blow you out to sea   |   were the leaves golden as they

fell     did the child stop smiling    wasn’t the beach

corpse-free when we got here     no     every beach

is riddled with corpses   |   there are     more ways     

of coming back to life     than just     breathing again

squander

heartbeats freighted with doubt     squander decades

of weaving time     the gift hours     of others’ aging    

scanning for insufficiencies   |   you don’t need to un-

stitch     and spool our threads back up     you’re not

a spider     there are scissors     right here in my hand  

the next step in breakdown     is dissolution   |   shock

and mourning swell     interrupted     by ice     melting

on warm comforts     by prescription   |   rooted things

rise towards     the indiscernibly armoring phase when

stems gruffin     into woodiness   |   an accidental nexus

of purpose     tapers off in all directions   |   how many

times do you wink     at someone stone faced     before

you stop

some things are only warm in layers

alone they empty to the wind

some people will not be contained

and have no shape to fit within

we match our breath to empathize

and are hyperventilated—

dropped into a car chase

with no pursuit and no evasion

detonations spin us towards

vicinities unknown—the light

turns cold and sheaths her sword

in ether as in bone

BIO: Nathaniel Calhoun works to protect and restore biodiversity around the Amazon basin and in his home country, Aotearoa New Zealand. His poems have featured or will soon feature in the Iowa Review, Oxford Poetry, Lana Turner, Puerto del Sol and many others. He reads for Only Poems and sometimes tweets @calhounpoems.