Jon Oyster
Lump
Today I went swimming with Mums.
Watched sacrifice become elegant displacement,
an irreversibly stretched pelvis swallowed
by the fickle blue and horse-bellies
gracefully cupped by refraction.
I feel a lump like the one that rises at the sight
of a hobbling war veteran or a blind scientist,
and something else, unexpected, that failed to throb
in the company of stem-waisted spinsters—
the tingle of hunger brought on by the subliminal text
written on the backs of healthy children.
Watched sacrifice become elegant displacement,
an irreversibly stretched pelvis swallowed
by the fickle blue and horse-bellies
gracefully cupped by refraction.
I feel a lump like the one that rises at the sight
of a hobbling war veteran or a blind scientist,
and something else, unexpected, that failed to throb
in the company of stem-waisted spinsters—
the tingle of hunger brought on by the subliminal text
written on the backs of healthy children.
Page(s) 25
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