Switch


my heart is a nude bulb. Or is it

my cock? Both muscles are small & hard.

Blink often, or at least wear protection, I repeated

 

but you refused. Said light made all days

a Pollock painting, spotted colours running

each other over. You cupped the fluttering red of it

 

made shadowed animals dance along my ribcage

with your hands. I was dizzy beneath

 

the beasts you made of me. Sometimes I let loose

language that shot across our skins, erecting

our hairs. Other times silence arrived

 

in the mail, it popped out of phones, leaked

from fanged sockets. I dribbled it

in my sleep. I tried turning everything off,

 

tried to find you in the dark & in the hush

see your small muscles burst electric.

 

Image: ‘City ribcage’ / Cydarianna

 

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Omar Sakr

Omar Sakr is the author of two acclaimed poetry collections, These Wild Houses (Cordite, 2017) and The Lost Arabs (UQP, 2019) which won the 2020 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Poetry. His debut novel, Son of Sin (2022) is out now.

More by Omar Sakr ›

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