Eyeing stars through a cracked lens
I photograph motions I make on my bicycle,
The round and swirl of whatever-it-is as I glide
Into mouths with black, ever-receding tongues.
Here, here, the circus-makers say: this death, not that death.
Or a dream far from death, a woman dressed in black, beckoning.
And always a lair under layers I can’t dig through. While a woman waits
At home knitting onions to a pillowcase, or stuffing a turkey with air.
I ride along the docks mixing potions in my shoes, sweat and gravel.
I walk the tracks across the rail bridges: each step a window
In the water, smatter of night flowing in the sewage and fish
In early metamorphic stages on return to mythic forms.
I have photographed galaxies pooling after a maelstrom
In a puddle, and urged after it, only to come hard upon my body,
And it hurts, it really hurts to be so alone.
The Cult of Pythagoras’ Photographer Speaks to your Mother
Matthew C. Henriksen received a B.A. in Writing from Lakeland College in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and currently is pursuing an M.F.A. in poetry from the University of Arkansas. His poems have appeared in Fox Cry Review and canwehaveourballback?