#MeToo: Alison Croggon

Alison Croggon

 

 

Tracing the damage

 

when you imagine the moon
makes the edges shine

the world a naked place
where you place beauty
as if it were an artifact

no matter how gloriously the contours of your sight
expand in this impatient light

at the centre
numb white

naturally it was always there
from the budding of memory

but now you simply float
you have seen it at last

this impossibly bright
silver pulsing
against the back of your eyes

everything else a red shadow
nudging you like a bruise

as if you could eviscerate that silence
with a scalpel

as if it could burst like a septic finger
its evilsmell
rotting at last outside you

the clean wound
simply a matter of pain

nothing is simple
you no longer know how to understand yourself

the word spoken in the circus
as a spinning body
dizzied by its own skill

an angel who approaches without courtesy
and spears you with his tongue

ah and after the consummation
what might be wished?

after the vigils and tears?
after the silence?

you understand only
the shine at the edges of things

the wing of a blackbird
flicked from your sight

words that vanish
precisely when you need them

somehow the blue is approachable
wished from your distances

hot evanescent
thrill of perception
slamming your eyelids open

your skin a fine net
tiny blue fish
flashing through

the violate
air gasped in
Yes