Returning Breath
David Rushmer
I
.
hunger
the word
wandering mirror
of your hand
drifting
hailstone
in the air
without language
.
the morning
songs
your speech
deep crystal
II
.
blown empty
the mouth
the sky
silk and
blood
language
you burn
.
eyelash memory
I held you
our mouths
skin sound
light
sinks
with us.
III
.
empty the shadow
from smoke
they eat
.
you
also in
language skull
heaven’s fists
white
endless ghosts
soundlessly
bloom
in the breath
your speech
invented
scars
IV
.
writing burns
it’s memory
full lung
in the opened book
something
black
drinks
bullet holes
& you forget
where memory catches
it’s breath
.
punctuation
your wounds talking
your hands
orbiting
invisible
circle language
V
.
glowing
in the
marrow
blood
wings the breath
shot from the world
& the silence
you empty into
.
threaded kisses
with heavens’ mirror
the earth pushed out
in your wounds
VI
.
once
I
was
light
David Rushmer lives and works in Cambridge, UK, and has published artworks and poetry in Angel Exhaust, Archive of the Now, Epizootics, E·ratio, Great Works, Molly Bloom and Shearsman. His most recent published pamphlets are The Family of Ghosts (Arehouse, Cambridge, 2005) and Blanchot’s Ghost (Oystercatcher Press, 2008). His first full length collection, Remains to be Seen, will be published by Shearsman in 2018.
