shrink like a
raining cloud.
my heart between ribs of
sky and earth
squeezed hard
as the ocean’s
bottom by countless
tons of its pressing hands.
the world fallen
elsewhere is
unnamed, but battles
back, climbs trees,
coughs to the grave.
hands hold my
head. yours,
slapping the face
of wind like
midwestern straw,
and then from under a
chicken, soft as the
the young girl’s hand,
a story is taken away:
a child cooks into
adulthood, shrinking
down to nothingness.
i can’t read the passage in this light,
can’t taste the salted memory of meat.
an ice shaving glaciates
on my tongue.
these cliffs hurry by.
this
sorrow
is
incorrect.
-
Livio Farallo is co-editor of Slipstream Magazine and Professor of Biology at Niagara County Community College in Sanborn, New York. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Blue Collar Review, Scud, Helix, Biscuit Hill, Beatnik Cowboy, Rattle, Spillway, Spelunker Flophouse, and others.