3 Poems by J.M. Theriault
rites
-
we engage in rites we hold
dear as only we are able
having known pining i find
this simplest existence tantamount
how can we linger in each other’s aether
a moment longer for surely this behaviour
represents an infraction against
a peripheral world all but tangential
to our horizoning
these thoughts and others meld
are brought to sunboil in the iris
a candlelight pool waning and
retracting such that we engulf
one another we engulf a void
bubbling so full of of rites we hold dear
until we are formlessly one
in breathspace in love in time
tadpole
-
afterwards i sit alone and for
a moment slip away as if i am
a tadpole freed by unliding
two pieces of a mason jar
allowed this mulling i envision
the shapes taken by my body
as parallels to my inhibition
so many laps in this body
the water knows best
in this sepulchral grace this
hollow we form the walls of
we are brooked this concurrence
at last when i gasp at breath in
a dark drownspace i will close
my eyes emitting our hydrocephalic
allays and i will know you
to depths implicitly granted
meal
-
sit with this poem in
tongueish tactility
slosh pages in toothgap
consonants to floss
what is a mouth
says the word; shaping
i can enfold as well
as i can enrapture
unflappable friction
kinesis; spatulate &
paprikate to taste
this aloud in you
or glossed is a
meal i suppose
J.M. Theriault is a Canadian author and poet. Their recent work has appeared in Scapegoat Review, Nat 1, and Livina Press.