ocean armed, black hands poised on waves,

a phial aches light, shut dry by the form,

tide shoulders sink their backs into caves;

through an aisle of skin, moves a mile of storm.

a heart copulates with the womb of a lung

and conceived in the bloom of veined grace,

a child is thrust from the bud of the tongue

and writhes on the eyes of a shuddering face.

an ephemeral vision, a glimpse underneath

a spindrift of masks on an ocean of blood

reveals a single black swan unraveling her kiss

love is the trestle of fury and breath,

a diadem of nepenthe grown from the mud

of a hell burning lampblack and bliss.

First published in Marcus Leatherdale’s Omen Magazine, 2010