ALLISON GRAYHURST

ALLISON GRAYHURST

AS YOUR SKY OPENS

I touch your eyelids

not to keep closed

nor to help lift,

just to understand

how such secrets form.

The night’s creatures

rise like needles from the earth,

into the trees, into the throbbing river’s arms.

You have so many days ahead,

so many visions unnamed, ready to be spoken.

Your tears drop like swallows.

Your smile changes the shape of each cloud.

WORKING WITH GLORY

In the rich thick salt

of a sea,

gulls gather creating

havoc with their stammering wings.

A dog brushes my knees.

Small pebble shells cover my toes.

I walk to the pavement where

an insect crawls,

seeing purpose there as great

as any mountain climber’s weight and cause.

I follow a madman off the pavement

into the bush, hearing the waking

of an oncoming downpour.

In a raven’s beak descending

a chant echoes into the open:

It brings in rays of maximum heat,

sets my name

on fire.

TO MOURN THE DUSK

Measure of rain,

echoing through his

protected slumber.

Authenticity locked beneath

his belly, amidst swarming

bullets of base destruction.

Rage grinding, titling his

equilibrium, shrinking

an ivory sun.

People play with him, give response

to his repeating voice, won’t abort

his fatal ebb and flow.

He sits with arrows under his seat,

trusts nothing but the iron isolation

of betrayal.

Will not speak to children or enjoy

a paint-by-number. Loves only

chewed wounds, impossible needs,

the drowned swimmer

of

his mind.

HAWK

Paradise bound

by doubt’s heavy claw.

Our promises were

fracturing. The hour

melted into sleep

then confusion.

In the bed where our stones

were gathered like oracles

of deliverance came the touch

of communion, your hands

crossing my boundary flesh.

Splitting the atmosphere,

and your eyes, feverish with love’s

great skill.

You circled me,

sliding down

through the stronghold space

between, entered

and gave what in tomorrow

I may never find.

THE LEAP

His body

has fallen

onto the pyramid’s point.

Pyramid

of passion’s climb, edge of

water of sunstroke-sea.

Thunder

in his bones, contagious,

moves through his nails and

hairstrands.

Has one dedication – to seek

and scream. Has no

mother

no rite of passage to

soak him in strength.

Thunder

of hard fought-for joy.

He tosses and turns at

the tip,

on his heels.

He lies flat, feet and arms

spread

like some great animal,

fossilized, once

in flight.

ALLISON GRAYHURST

ALLISON GRAYHURST is a member of the League of Canadian Poets. Four times nominated for “Best of the Net”, 2015/2017, she has over 1150 poems published in over 460 international journals and anthologies. She has 21 published books of poetry, six collections and six chapbooks. She lives in Toronto with her family. She is a vegan. She also sculpts, working with clay; www.allisongrayhurst.com