Tuesday poem #3 : Marcus McCann : from Winter of Weak Welcome

And bam, I'm unnormally lost, pinned in the middle of gravity, I top its nub which is a gift when I pivot. When I pivot, the trees behind other trees lean, I get perspective. Out of every tree creeps a numinous purple snow tree, there are so many trees compared to me, I think, and something numinous and purple creeps out of and away from me too 

*

A wet, burgundy streak, fur pushed to the side like a curtain, its injury like a pot glazed in rich pigment, a satin sash over a matte dress, its organics focus into organs as I progress, beauty queen, beauty queen, I never saw the news channel, nothing, and now, I think, I am seeing news with my actual eyes, little man, forty pounds of carcass, it looks like a box TV, immovable. And then I moved it with my eyes, and dug in the snow with my eyes, and buried it with my eyes and it was gone with my eyes

*

When I finished singing, the last taste of my voice leapt to the top of a hill and looked back, the bowl of snow I am in turns like a potters' wheel, I feel my head twist off, an organ other than my heart pumps La Dorsale into my hands and feet, I feel clearheaded and blind and happy, I feel the string tied to my neck snap

*

Dispeptic on the vanishing points, orientational, seasick, my back squaring against a tree, like focus, focus, a man's jaw with stubble, colder, the cornerstone on a gothic tower, I stand up and face its knots which look like other nature, river bed, chilled magma, and, also, bundles of computer cables, laundry basket, a steamer on its end, I admit I have a problem, I want treatment, I need help

*

In the O of afternoon light, my outside skins I want to crack off, a thumb under, like from a boiled egg eggshells, a raw red noise always arriving, pulpmill rays, reams of them, surrounding me like a slick or my bursting overexposed sunspot chest, warm and daily, I am corresponding, there is verve in the air I am grooving to, I can feel. I recall knowing that I was “on”, the smallest light on the dashboard brave and unaware and continuous after the accident

*

The night grew from a wet spot in the sky: indigo, ominous, undiapered darkening. And then its long, feathered body smothered the copse I was in, I saw it coming, its blinkered eye, the whole forrest was talons, I bunkered down, I couldn't unclench but when the night carried off my desire it was warm and we snuggled, and I wasn't surprised, not at all, I saw everything, everything, pinwheels, a low pressure system, stardust, what was coming after

*

And, later again, me gaping, the whole forrest like thinning fur on a moose flank, I saw from my hot inside seat the trees were holy and deciduous, snow like a hairbrush's white tongue through bristles. Wider. I hovered in my thoughts, I watched a million cubic feet of air shudder, I was overcome. I was overcome, almost. I was almost overcome. In those seconds, I lost the brilliant gloss and got fussy. I fuzzed out


Marcus McCann is a poet and journalist. He is the author of Soft Where (2009, Chaudiere Books) and The Hard Return (2012, Insomniac) and a number of chapbooks, including The Glass Jaw, Town in a Long Day of Leaving, and Force Quit. He is a winner of the John Newlove Award and the EJ Pratt Medal, and was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert and the Robert Kroetsch awards. He now lives in Toronto, where he studies law.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan