DISCONNECTED #7 by Gillian Prew

The asphyxia of this enemy,
this petrified trouble,
knocking for medicine in the exiled crevices –
the mourning ducts and their art tearing
at the science of discomfort. It is futile,

these lost lungs,
compressed by apprehensive bars -
with the volition of a bird,
the rage of incarcerated madmen.

It is wrong to wrench the poetry from them
when it leaks already
a subjugated storm. I

use my heart as a cudgel,
accessing the criminal in the bone. These small deaths
enough to make me lay down my life
and wish to be a poet;

a dedicated lover
that bears no witness to ego, that sloughs
the skin like a sacrifice, that sheds the dry despair
of streets filled with throes of juddering fish.