Aren’t all our fathers priests? | Liam Chimba

What fold of the sun makes

me separate from the bottles and ring

a ring o roses? I wonder to noone but your

scarlet attirements remind me of that

one Ernst painting

you know the one–oh–you don’t

I try getting things straight through

the jack and daniels and so your father

is an epidemiologist–how would he feel about the bodies

clutched up beside you–i’m joking of course

in that way we all do–exegesis and call it love

oedipus in the shape of your dorm curtains

so vultures circle the earth–just above the ceiling–

whats new there? and they're the shape of him

bald and diseased and traipsing no man’s land–

I cant cross that line for you i’m afraid–

no matter the symbolic title

for our organs mashing together

I picture burning in that little death–funny

google how to forge a kiss

and you must see through the honey on your lips

or maybe not but I guess that makes me reflect

maybe the performance will turn

to eisegesis if I cross you hard enough

didn't Ernst invent frottage and is that

why i am thinking of him and I could

tell you the name of my mother but it'd make

it all far too obvious–

isn't that the joke that spans the earth?

wont our kids make great reproductions of us?

poor penetrating machines and hopeless

circles of becoming the same–

doesn't the homogeneity of your bleached bedsheets

and fake floral design just

get too much sometimes?

i want to read to you about

fortresses of disgust whose circumference

spans the earth in parabolic smoke but, but, I cant.

instead we play peekaboo with a pure pall

veiling your head and though i think of saying it

–I dont think this is love–

right into your beak but there's no reason

when you're that bride from an Ernst

Liam Chimba (He/Him) is a graduate of Creative Writing and Philosophy from the University of Chichester. He lives on the East coast of England. Published in Fugitives & Futurists.