setting stone

Harvest of shadow
open so sleep will last
— Phil Hall, Old Enemy Juice

a weight; a concentrated northern rime
of fibre-optic burn

where northern goes; a treelined blur

landscape rocky melt of colours drop canadian shield
a weapon held

or to be; precambrian drift, lake huron heat

a lungful lug & long collapse; if nothing shadows season lengthy long

an alphabet its stations of the cross; an alphabet its stations

a pressure etching back, a stones throw; barring depth
untended; a shape of sedentary skin

circling flesh; a pleasure pulled apart

or lidless, lipless, crush; a hard place, waiting cast

what crude pretended, decimated; by thousands & our tens
of thousands

forget-me-not; a splintered shore a cabin brace

I am hopelessly beyond; tough skin or lodestone ribbed

a feet of grey grass, shouldered concrete

am mealy-mouthed, besieged