Rigor Mortis

      Our bodies fasten to whatever's nearest;
      something hidden nibbles on a clear line
      and we yank it home. All day, inverted billows
      swallow our offerings, raw life red inches of flesh
5     pinned like a college sweetheart, thrown
      to silver bodies that come thwacking through the sky
      to stiffen in our below-decks ice chest.
      Live nets coil in our hands and slacken;
      we cannot master the minutest mysteries....
10    heavy waters trouble our pumps, and we heave
      into evening; it is dark; everywhere
      the slightest events evade us; a fly specks the fish.
      Packed in the lamplit cabin, I claw a book, written
      by one drunk for you, the other.

 

From the collection "Red Bank"

Written by Gregg Glory [Gregg G. Brown]

More information available on gregglory.com.