Slug / Gun & Finger by Anne Ross
Slug / Gun
slug gun, breach action load
a lead shuttle, soft metal slug
we, standing on the granite
where moss grows as bright green
blankets, cold, water running from the soil
machines flattened for lawn machines mow
pull the gun open like a curtain
we put our whole body into it,
I , sorry -
put my whole body into it
being small / the movements would not come
natural / then / my thumb caught in the metal
jaw of the gun / blood running from the hole
it’s emotion as a thought you can trade for
that the stomach clings to / they/it/we keep the bit cut off
falling forever / even when it grows back
scars over / scars this never over
people getting over it (the magic / carpet)
the proverbs’ proverbial rug literal corpses are swept under / see
the dead and deadly writhing
in the water the letters / worms / in eugenic code, black
against a backdrop of white
we were shooting a mobile phone that day
window to worlds we can see ourselves, still living, caught in
call the gutsy rescue mission
rapid onset / rebellious / whatever you want
i can sit on the literal same literal granite
a decade later and touch the moss
with all my fingers
all myself
soft
Finger
brown and brass carp glitter in the sun
slithering too deep to see as you talk to me
Dad says the titanium valve in his heart
would make a good ring when he burns
trying to shift a boulder with my older brother
he drops it on the middle finger of my left,
same as the fish bit on my other brother
in the ocean of K'Gari - you keep catching digital
fish in Go - 66 Magikarp - no,
i wouldn't wear my father's heart
make my own
morbid charms from glass slag and copper
wire – on the phone with you - white Australia is a furnace vessels
for spirits are the cast of kath and kim in, the slags we find
where the fire drum was twist like rock hard
ghosts + their shadows in the ceiling, fungal
blooms a soft network, here to rot you
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