Vulture Magazine The Michaelmas Issue 2013 | Page 34

Little Flies
Listen, old and scratching player
to the sound of your tears.
I spent an afternoon painted dragonfly
blue
huddled inside these four walls
waiting for music.
Maybe it was just never meant to be.
The graveyard of love and expectation is
vast
and still expanding
and the voices of ghosts aren’t usually
strong enough
to break through the sound barrier.
But still that is why I waited
because the sound of your scraping needle
sounds like my clicking skeleton
and the whir of your turntable
is like the rattle of my breathing sometimes
when I awake in the night and it is quiet.
Miriam Gordis

Effigy
Why don’t I burn your clothes?
I cannot bear them
And I cannot wear them.
They sit where they were supposed
When they had a use.
I ought to move them to the shed
Or cast them from a window ledge
Or find a new excuse
To leave them where they are.
This way, pretending to ignore
Their presence in the drawer,
Whites my hair.
But could I throw them in a pit
And light them with matches
Until the fabric catches
And they disappear? I doubt it.
If they were burnt to black
And floating in the air as dust
Caught in the slow breeze, just
What would you wear when you come back?
James P Mannion
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Ryan Johnson