I squat like a sly dog
like a pregnant Boeing
to junk all grace and
genuflect – to utter
a furred kettle’s pitch
electrics fizzing O spoilt
miracle of my heart.
Pray I pitch my bones
into some task of worth
as your nails, Lord, elbow
and fibrous scapula graze
the inside of my gullet.
Like some sly and twitching
dog I watch, observe
and fix my paws
like clubs to beat upon
the cruelly visible.
What has mass
and damage, what has
cost and record –
build a room for it
make a camera of the eye
to beat upon
the visible remains
of sun and gut.
My heart a massy bulb
convulsing
with the sudden, neon
shock of –
no
it was not grace
but something wrenched
and seething
and mine.
Tom Chivers 