a conversation in poetry

Dominique Hecq & Béatrice Machet #1 – Nearer this dawn – collaboration

Nearer this dawn

Pick up the day by the scruff of the neck
homecomings have sharp teeth

though ignorant of meaning they bite
taking puppy fat            for puppy love

and dark      soft     words
melt in ink swirl we call
survival

drop by drop it is
your very self reflected and gathered
as dark as breath  when it sneaks out
between fangs

under the cross-eyed sun
so hot        you creep       inside
and scribble at large
                       about interstellar
                                  encounters

a rainbow bird—which
doesn’t belong to you—
is your hand
wavering
what could it grasp that wouldn’t escape
through scrawling 

but an i
with multiple voices
and personae salvaging
scenarios and pieces of time
                                  or death

which amounts to the same thing

but an i
ceberg standing for the ship
claiming its outsiderhood
fermenting till swollen till
prematurely split open
yet trying to be more human

as iceteeth crash on the shoreline