Jeffrey McDaniel (1967 / Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)

I want to locate a bit of you, cradle it,
say: this, there is no word for this.

But they will. They who name everything
will define our actions
as we auction our bodies off to sleep.

In our single dram we'd compose
a manifesto on the irregularity of scars.

The very idea demands preparation, as if
choosing a school for an angel.

There are no angles. Just those things
blinking like the teeth of jackals
around the moon's significant tremble.

Isolate the idea of shaking our bodies
under the blank comfort of down and tell
me which way will our knuckles face?

Now shake the idea of our isolated bodies
As the sheets become our Miro.

If you stay, the walls will admit their cracks,
See it forming, already on their lips.