growing down
into the dirt
disappearing
a slip of dark night
over a garden wall
is this my existence?
where a generous creature
was birthed as loneliness
but I believe in nothing
even the bombs that fell
sweeping over my bed
like a vast grey ocean
of wet wet voices
felt like nothing
but whispering
she was the poet
of my forgetting
the backyard crawl
of another world
my mouth opened
as her violet words
beheaded me
like a dahlia
I am still dying from
the shell fragments
of her death poems
walking the earth
something I could
never draw in my
broken pencil din
then
all beauty became
slick long shadows
of heartbreak words
the anemia I could never
swallow
did I ask for too much
was it no small thing
in the middle of the sky
to be laid to rest deep
in wind and veins
bursting
high on a stone
in the soft beyond
rocking back and
forth like a child
before it was human
there is no ending
that I can remember
I was sleeping in a bed
this dream was silence
it was a beautiful day
– Daniel Haskin
November 2, 2023