all night love

Charles Mahaffey

2019 - poetry

a train turns off its light finds its tunnel    down the long groove  in midnight   groping
grasping    navigating   slow    slow nocturnal purple coal    plumes     if you
remove the rails    and   their flexing wood ties   still without lines   still comes
    daybreak  an oval   opening    comes suns   arching back comes horizon lines  folded over    forms swallowing themselves

a train    on an   all night tulip    petals tucked like knuckles huddled       scraping a tendril sky  there are no instructions    on how to spread pollen    there is
only the undulating hustle of   locomotives stroking   bees wings   a seed must be carried on the
tongue then buried    blind   a bulb    inside    a vascular womb

everything takes the shape   of an ‘O’ if its spun   a barreled body    taken head on
   rings inside an ear    shaking pennies pressed into oval palms    leave rose red imprints   when a
train enters a body   through the eye   the mind flips it over   to scribble circles on its back
  there is no vowel sound    without at least fifteen degrees of curve in its mouth   in the
dark inattentive tongues   pointed out looka soft pilled pink   a line emerging    in the
night.