AFTERLIFE ON A LONG, SHALLOW HILL

The footed rhyme of grave
gained this cobbler's shrine
benign in grass, this body, alive.

For what is sun but in a moving cloud it is.
And when. Or not when but of. Of longing.

After that, night unglues it's unknown anyway. Then o.
Oblivion's lens never closes. Diner won't blink.

The diner won't blink.
Its song demolishes our total losses.
People were terrified, then gone.

The soil opened its skin, hatching poppies.
O love, make again this disgrace.









AFTERLIFE WITH STILL LIFE

The glass has not been broken.
A rest is a favor to the knee

at the crest of the ocean waters about to recede with the crabs,
the white on their backs, shadows like glass, what reflection looks through.

Your skull is shining. Your noggin perfecting the triangle,
making nothing out of three. Another makes immaculate the mind.









AFTERLIFE ENDING AS A QUESTION

The world began in wrong. The clouds
prove this by their leniency. As grace
disturbs our sentiments for violence

so the bush lays its ambush of lilacs.
The shortness of the fuse is what

we must suppose God meant
for us to love. Let all songs

shorten the fuse, then
defuse it.

What is love but a negative collaboration?








AFTERLIFE AS JOB'S PAJAMAS

The people are leaving the city. God is sad.
Experience fear for its own worth, God thinks.

Yes, that is why I created all things, to burn
or not, to rub against dream, to seem

seamless and futile, yet beautiful, a burn
on Ira's arm that won't hurt in a few days,

Floyd thinks, because even if there is
no city, God is sad. Cogito ego sum.

No, the people are leaving the city
because they suck, and I suck, too,

God thinks, because I made them,
and Ira's arm hurts because Floyd

grabbed her ass while she was ironing
his pants. Why things fall to insults,

I'll never know, Floyd thinks he hears
God say, who is leaving the city, too.









Matthew Henriksen teaches at Roberto Clemente Middle School in Harlem. Poems of his appear (or will) in Dirt, Fascicle, H_NGM_N, horse less review, Indiana Review, Octopus, and the tiny. He co-edits Typo and curates the Burning Chair Reading Series in the East Village and Brooklyn.





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