Matthew Porubsky 

Drive-think                time – 
                           moving through space,
                           constellations streak, 
radiate continuous playouts.
​
                                Oh Darling,
another dead deer 
                                on the side 
                                of the road,
another armadillo 
        split open.
​
                   What is their judgement?
        How loud is the trumpet
                   that conjures their weeping codas?
​
                             I’m a dart.
Winds                  whistle 
          through my feathers.
​
                     My shiniest point rusted.


Dust wakes thick from desert roads,
                    boils my movement 
                    with rolling clouds.

---

​Shucked 
           from my skin,
           the pulp of me melts
                      beside scrub grass,
figures to     rocks and shells.
​
           I see a face in the sands – 
           a reflection in the lake.
​
                      The snakes 
                               remember me,
                               whisper, 
“Brother,               listen! Brother!”
​
          I change forty days 
                                to one.
​
          From the fast
          I have slimmed;
          created a battle-fresh
                               transfiguration.


I glow from burns,
                      pulse in the edging night.
​
           My pockets stuffed
           with new poise,


           I cup a flint box in my hands –
           gently blow against potential,


           wait for a flame.

---

Matthew Porubsky is a writer born and raised in Topeka, Kansas. He is the author of voyeur poems, Fire Mobile (the pregnancy sonnets), John, Ruled by Pluto, and Serpent's Lap. He currently works as a copywriter at the University of Kansas.