World gaps, liminal spaces
Glass cages for the dopamine-low
A tree split by lightning,
Dare you extend a hand, touch its raw flesh?
Puddle-dust, obscuring infinite depth
Questions not asked, your grandparents’ secrets,
Histories or heroism too terrible to reveal
The brick that crumbles when isolated
Naked frailty, quickly unseen
Behind carved privet
The state’s routine.
Inhale the city: a double thrown necklace of fist-sized
Links that clank and ring against
The stone-buckled flank of a passing truck
An unseen hook takes you by the armpit
Ahab of the denying eye, struck to its nerveless hide
Pedestrians look up, see your obsessions
Writ in fading letters
You look sideways,
Opportunity slips like virgin sand
Lost and caught and lost again
By the child at your feet
Settling in round-topped piles between bronzed toes
Sun-warmed, irrelevant now,
Among higher ideals.
The bark closes around your ever-thin shoulders
Just a stir of leaves
For others to question.
Philip Berry’s poetry and short fiction have appeared in Black Bough, Roi Fainéant, Poetry Birmingham, The Healing Muse, Deracine, and Dream Noir. He lives in London, UK. His work can be explored at www.philberrycreative.