from “Margot”
[2]
there are voices sometimes called memory
sometimes drink the way a compass points true
letters of postmarks historic or dated
the songs of Johnny Cash on a slow Georgian night
the rustle of wind against wheat
the shuffling of rat feet
Aunt Margot drinks herself stupid
and you want to join her or has she passed
I cannot remember the house I was born in or
the house I am in currently
there is the rapport cultivated with the mailman
and the bill collector, the landlord and a few of his tenants
I am comfortable in my shoes
by shoes I mean skin
the house I was born in was brick or panel
perhaps wooden with peeling paint
Margot smoked Virginia Slims between beers
and talked nervously about anything
the way the guilty avoid their confessions
a car dead in the front yard
or just its fiberglass corpse
by comfortable I mean cramped
something akin to stifled perhaps asthmatic
a compass askew as to true north
David Harrison Horton is a Beijing-based writer, artist, editor and curator. He’s written two chapbooks: Pete Hoffman Days (Pinball) and BeiHai (Nanjing Poetry). His poetry has recently appeared or forthcoming in Ethel, Acropolis, Noctua, Punk Noir and Otoliths, among others. He edits the poetry zine SAGINAW.
Thin Air Magazine 