Photo (CC) Rachel Titiriga @ Flickr
*
The Bone House
In the thralldom of debt
there is said to be honour among thieves,
martyrs, hair-eaters and others
beset by archive fever.
An oracle of sleep preceded
the resurrectionist’s calling.
Against all agonies you push through
shades of bone assuming old faces.
An unrepentant guest
her arrival marked by bells
as in some cavern mourners
choke on mouths of light.
There is nothing more seductive
than a ghost
except perhaps the invitation
of an ambiguous wound.
She carried that letter
in her pocket for days,
‘always thought drowning
was such a pretty way to die’
(danger is when
the hand returns).
I don’t remember the rest
but it was given as
an anatomical treatise
on the laughter of
leaves against skin:
elegy for a floating world..
.
It was a relief to no longer be seen
……………………..as hollow.
Her fists curl into organs
as she fumbles through
…………………..the open door.
All the old grievances aglow
with the lucidity of dust.
Shame ruins your taste
for the delights of melancholia.
After the whip comes down
there’s only so much charm
a girl can stand..
.
She was just there
in the asphalt,
a biological gift
………………unmoored.
Behind the trailer
clothed in anaesthetic
………….hisses
an actress with no mouth.
The unblemished girl
in the plaid silk dress
seeks mutiny in
stolen cigarettes
and snowstorms.
.
In my dream
I saw us both unblamed
so, now
we can navigate blind
alleys without enlisting
the kindness of strangers.
*
*
*
The Heretics’ Asylum
Her god never condoned
the murder of horses.
After the killing spree
the local thaumaturge
traced upon her neck
a diagram of bones.
The absent face
regrew, leaving only
a pale scar to border
sleeping limbs.
She will never leave this place—
this appellation
in the eyes of the church,
a mid-stream persuasion toward
the beguiling mechanism
of belief, dressed up for
a core of materialists..
.
Accurate use of the electrical machine
was unusual in their circle.
The physician knows nothing
of angels with proper names.
Reverence is permitted only
toward unseen patients,
an innate distrust of that
which can be embodied
in a creed.
It would be useless
to attempt so minor a feat
as the removal of bones
from the throat.
A residuum of facts exist
surrounding fringe medicine:
the cure by faith as
a demand for marvels.
Her calculated regard
for uncritical adherents
results in a book of wonders,
based on antipathy..
.
My sister could have won this race
if she’d had enough breath.
Years later I utter her name as my own
against the echo of a blank stage.
Beneath this corpulent delirium
doctors see a potential corpse
to which a ghost is loosely attached.
To enter the incubation chamber
you must provoke
the knife, the drug, and the spell.
Sleep with the fourth book
beneath your pillow.
Safety is unkempt seclusion:
a wilderness of paralysis..
.
In the absence of habitual dreaming
she complains of the walls.
Falling is the only certainty.
The evangelist’s call is
a labour of recognition.
The origin of the delusion
was only her own hair.
After the manifestation of clouds
it is no longer a comfort to know
the source of that torment
there is no terror equal to
the particularity of a name.
***
ABOUT THE POET
Lindsay Tuggle grew up in the Southern United States, and migrated to Australia eleven years ago. She now divides her time between the two countries and is working on a book of elegies. Lindsay’s poetry has been commissioned by the Red Room Company and published in literary journals such as HEAT, Mascara, and Contrappasso Issue #1. Her poem “Anamnesis” was awarded second prize in the Val Vallis Award for Poetry. In 2011, she undertook an Australian Academy of the Humanities Travelling Fellowship. In 2012, she was a John W. Kluge Fellow at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
Contrappasso Magazine: International Writing 