Kinds of Kindness
Cleave me the least finger, then leave oil
for the skillet. Defrost my haunch for your
next vignette while our liver’s still
iron rich. Hunger brings its own kind
of kindling. We release these single
tears into stilled whirlpools to be given
glimpses : a sacred face, flash of what’s
familiar made strange. To know oneself
only when driven fast enough to punish
or repent. For a second time, I’d dive
into the empty deep end. From there,
the humming rush of what’s running.
What it means to be severed, tasted
and made to be clean.
Department of Midnight
Proximate to those most
sonorous, dark matter’s redaction
of anomalous folding
bones. A locked room’s moot,
mute warning : false gods dissolve
once cuffed & collared.
Tangent as
sidestep. Anonymous graffito
as aleatory lore.
Chris McCreary's latest book of poems, awry, was published by White Stag in 2024. He lives in South Philadelphia and on IG at @chris___mccreary.