ALLISON GRAYHURST has been nominated for โBest of the Netโ five times. She has over 1,400
poems published in over 530 international
journals, including translations of her work. She has 25 published
books of poetry and 6 chapbooks. She is an ethical vegan and lives in
Toronto with her family. She also sculpts, working with clay.
RABBIT
Broken longing
healed in the eyes
of a tender receiver, blessed
by mercy and the promise of perpetual drink.
Soft, silky warmth beside me
fragile and more precious than
any perfectly-cut gemstone.
Faith once mangled now restored
to a richer glory than introduced before.
Solitude in communion – God inside
a gentle touch, mutual bond and loneliness appeased.
Sweet waters of fate receive me,
my neck is stretched high,
my arms are a basket.
Let the unassuming reign,
place me secure in this place
where the private and the meagre
are honoured, quietly
declared yours.
I STAND UP
I stand up, everything
falls down, the load and the balance
on a soft bed of nothingness to catch
and embrace in a cruel dream
of freedom.
I draw my breath in the rising wave,
knowing the calm waters are too lonely
for sustenance.
This has butchered my means of survival,
drowning my body in acid-mud.
This has rounded out the edges, so
like a hard ball, I am tumbling down
an incline that stretches out
to a cliff with fast momentum,
no chance of halting or even slowing down.
I found a piece of joy in day-to-day service
and must pay with blood flow, extreme heat and drought,
pay and never have a day without survivalโs worrisome
stranglehold gnawing out my intestines, making holes
here, serious as death, serious
as an asteroid breaking the atmosphere,
thinning my faith and all I hold sacred,
tying it down on a large rock, trying me up
on a large rock, in slow decomposition,
waiting the buzzardโs peck and sting.
