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Nicholas Allin
You spoke a cloud into being, filled the throat
swallowed the puffed air
and it vibrated your whole body, the forearms
and the toes trembling
like rainclouds, the wet of it washing through
your coughing mouth
your watery lips. You said white and the world
became cloud-covered,
gray and the rain gathered around it like a chain
constricting, swarmed
and muddied the place. And why then
should I close my eyes
when your chest begins the deep gush
of black. black. black.
Ezekiel’s valley, I clattered through the bones
a collar, a finger—my feet
dried, my skin tightening. You must have begun
with my skeleton, lightly
snapping me into being, from the mist pouring
from your throat, you sang
me into the world, your tongue flooded in warm
honey. You rattled me
awake, stretched tendon to ulna, soleus to calcanius.
Your palm held me
up. These bones, standing quiet, slumped
under your strong wings—
My stomach was a stone—you hollered
for wind! and tumbled me about.
LORD I plant my feet into your soil, five toes
five seeds digging past
the top of a muddy field, I roll downward
I heat in the damp ground.
You wave me into a sprouting leaf, you whistle
forth, you channel a river
through my skin, you spread my ankles
to a gurgling stream, you
break the mist and shatter it to shards of the day
I rush my hands out
I giggle the leaves, they dazzle, flutter—
The air is chocolate, I fall
drowsy in your earth, I sleep, my arms flung,
pears, plums, peaches, grapes.
Nicholas Allin has an MA in creative writing from Florida State University. He reads for The Southeast Review and teaches Logic and Modern Drama at Christ Classical Academy.
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