Tim Liardet
Ganja
Watching as Able’s big knuckled fingers ply
the strands of his neighbour’s hair into tight corn-rows,
stood with the rest, I try bringing to mind what
they most remind me of: the legs of a foal kinking
awkwardly at the knee, the mouths of ten fish
feeding from one source, a cooperation
of cylinders … Now he’s returned from the toilet
so suspiciously heavy limbed, the silence around him seems
to have grown a visible aura. Rather than take
the whole class with him where he wants it to go
he follows his finger-bones down, soul and body, down
through ever deepening layers of concentration
to where the receiver—who likes his hair touched—is hung out
like a cuffed kitten which gives up its nape
to such rough licking as this, while way below the eye-line
Able’s own two waistbands, turned earthward, loll
like flags from the pole of his spine, one chequered red,
one slipping, standard issue, prison-green.
Page(s) 38
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