The Cult of Pythagoras’ Photographer Speaks to your Mother

by Matthew C. Henriksen

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.


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?