Where Are You, by Dustin Cole

A poem by Dustin Cole

Where Are You

taped-off
crime scene
body language

blacklight
traced 
in the pupil

bodyprint
sucked
to a point 

I sniff it 
like a relic shroud 
I sniff it like the dog I am

where are you, she said
from down the cone hall
from inside my cone hat

watching me swim 
in pools 
of wool

I itch, 
a basement 
in each shoulder

wherein 
shine
spinning spoked wheels 

and a nimbus sags  
over the pleated
light

along the nipple’s 
edge of
doctored footage

the video art
of Houdini’s ghost
in seven parts

witch telling fortunes with butts in the ashtray
little lamb in downy green
slanting mouth in slanting hall

ending
at the point 
of nearest sight

the mind’s 
pet
a liquid wall

it plays
disappears 
some place 

unwitnessed
ashtread
slow-motion tape

frame by 
ill lit 
frame

like chakras
clenching 
eye screws

or chalklines
mouthing
rainbled psalms

Dustin Cole is the author of the novel Notice (Nightwood Editions) and the poetry chapbook Dream Peripheries (General Delivery). He has also contributed writing to Apocalypse Confidential, Maximus Magazine, BC BookWorld, Heavy Feather Review and the British Columbia Review.

Illustration by Adam Lehrer