I Made the Mistake of Calling Myself that Once

maybe the gapped pages

were on purpose

the lining of my stomach

needed some space to shape

an egg white hatching

looking over the desert

and its smoke – are my nostrils

also that collective tissue

of experience? I can’t

find lines to follow myself

back home in the fog and dark

above the chickens

and roosters roost to call the red light

out of blood and straw

time atrophies

its immaculate sweep of mountains

has settled into the pathetic shape of a man

Adrian Kien