It’s Been Months

since this shell’s

collapsed and I have been intoxicated

with this hard joy of immediacy and a world

without blunder or hesitation. It has been irritating—

to feel this hot longing in my gut,

reflecting on nothing, worrying about nothing but the smells

around me, the power of pale hands too close to so many faces—

the long black rope I climb and climb and love like

my only wardrobe. It has been months since I left

that heavy weight behind. Guilt

is something I’ve outgrown and my blood feels poisoned by

this strange alchemy. I know it is not female or male,

but saturated with desire and burning and swelling—not in flashes,

but constant as the pulsing sun. The unsettling of this unexpected

heaven—the knowing that I can look no further than today—

seeing both like an insect and like a god—breathing through the terror,

at peace with the terror and the thousand lifetimes it took to get me

to this place, unbound—sliced in all the hard places

and so. and so.

explosively, barbarously

connected.

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​Allison Grayhurst has had her poetry published in over 100 literary magazines in Canada, the U.S., England, India and Australia. Her last book, Somewhere Falling, was published in 1995 by Beach Holme Publishers, a Porcepic Book. She lives in Toronto, Canada with her husband, two children, two cats and a dog. She also sculpts, working in clay.