In That Crab Hole I Call My Father’s House

after Jeremy T. Karn

every room         is a knife
the dining table

a blade
we must
chisel   our bodies
till we do not look like

what kwashiorkors    our being
thing is
the moon begins & ends

the day

the sun is just a middleman
singing the woes of the day

into the bellyof the night as if
to mean
joy is for the morning

but

here every day      is the mouth of a gun
longing to give our bodies

    to the godsof the earth

Flourish Joshua, Frontier XX, is the winner of the 2021 Salt Nation Poetry Prize. He’s appeared in London Grip Poetry, miniskirt magazine, Olongo Africa, Poetry Column NND, Blue Marble Review, Five South Journal, No Contact, the Indianapolis Review, Agbowó, the minnesota review, Magma Poetry, the Walled City Journal, & elsewhere. He is the Founding/Poetry Editor at Olúmọ Review, Associate Poetry Editor at miniskirt magazine & a Best of the Net nominee.

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