I sang in cement for the slow coliseum
of red horses. I did not come to this city
to watch Szálasi eat ashes from a shoe.
Hate is scented with nostalgia. Choking
on Lubyanka, my body at the bottom,
a mask of mist bound to your brother,
I left the cloth, the leather like
a line of copper boats dreaming
the Danube, nothing a foot could fill.
Nostrils, steam. The future’s here to feed
me lilies of the valley & butterflied
shellfish, which I enter with a wedding
ring. I split the prayers of swimmerets,
inhaling hollows. The heart I eat entirely.
Chad Foret is a PhD candidate in Poetry, teacher, and editor of Arete at the University of Southern Mississippi. Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Best New Poets 2018, MAYDAY, Spoon River Poetry Review, and other journals and anthologies.