Morgue
Where midnight hatched
from its alabaster egg
and the first bone was broken.
The origin of winters,
flesh purpled with snow,
void versus abyss,
obliteration in wedlock with oblivion.
Where death pens its screed,
reeking of formaldehyde,
each letter a tendon basket
brimming with knuckles and toes,
with what remains of us.
Here is where we count the wounds
and measure out life’s length of string,
the longest night outwitting summer.
Here is where we read your palm,
undermining the mound of Venus,
milking ichor from a slit to the wrist,
cataloguing the hollows of a heart,
its lack of red juice and oscillations.
Even the light is made of ice.
Even the Devil walks around this house,
this waystation of the soul,
this mystic corridor and its thousand doors.
Even Death won’t live here.
Bruce McRae, a Canadian musician, is a multiple Pushcart nominee with poems published
in hundreds of magazines such as Poetry, Rattle and the North American Review. The winner
of the 2020 Libretto prize and author of four poetry collections and seven chapbooks, his poems
have been broadcast and performed globally.
Fixator Press 