Absorb
By Mathias Nelson

I thought of novels
before I had the ability to write them
but saw their scenes in my head
like a movie theater made of bone,
and though I may never write them
the experience was beautiful,
a show made just for me
with my own private actors,
where none of the blood
was fake, where all the sex
was real, where women and children
died like men and lived forever
in that moment just like now
with the breeze
bringing curtains to brush my cheeks,
with the carpet
orange as flames cushioning my feet,
where I am alive
poised forever
over this keyboard,
fingers striking the black keys
then falling onto them
to absorb their heat
like a child’s fevered temple.

Mathias Nelson’s first full-length collection of poetry,
Dip My Pacifier in Whiskey, is available through New York Quarterly
Books http://www.nyqbooks.org/title/dipmypacifierinwhiskey