mtc cronin: 31

scream-shot
all the names are in between
the name that is never written on the grave
(it waits for justice)
the grappling names
those corresponding with the gamut
hearing the universe begin
they write in ash
the lines of two alphabets
so that the lines cross
annihilating the sign and sound
of what is central to speech
this is the teleology of enation
ostentation
the faute de mieux
a bundle of rods
the possibility of ending up
forshadowing all likelihood
they act as if they were the crocodile
languishing on the ocean bed
and slowing its heart to three beats a minute
waiting two years between meals
but never feel themselves drown
never notice the ache in their bellies
satisfied at last by simple time
their past words knock
on the roof of the ocean
but they hear only the small breaking suns
of their dawn chromosomes
the mercy scratches of thread-like fibres
scrabbling to birth their sense of self