Lullaby

 The footprints coming the other way

Could only be mine from the future

Inscribed into trail—pavement chalk

ex-riverbed—breadcrumbed with currency

Of solitude. 

                          Clearings in forest deeper

Than any ocean twitch like a candle

In a draught—all hands on requiem!

The untimely resurrection of bridges and dams

Pleading for flight or plausible deniability’s
Concrete waltz. 

                          You silhouette in transit

Against canyons etched by language

Caught off-guard by architecture folding

Like deck chairs setting sail across

Forgotten fields. 

                          Clouds the truest windows

In this world it’s easy to ask the impossible

Of; 

       heart compresses the sun; 

                                                     everything

In its place of heartbreak watered down.

 3 Madrigals

 Believe in the chorus of insects;

Burn with the downpour of birds.

Earthquakes script their ballets;

Permafrost exposed like old film

stock. A word perforated—

Sepia sleepless—

Chooses a place to eat the horizon.

O sunrise I surmise.

         —

Constellation in the fruits of a tree

Under a homeless sky:—

Deciduous wings; dovetailed leaves—

My throat is cut by long grass

And pouring rain in paradise.

The veins in my arms are painted on

With the loops of Egyptian temples;

The geometry of chance.

Every cell in the body is a sacrifice.

         —

The mirror smiles at the fractured

Like a comet capable of measuring

Its own impact. A pile of sand

That might hear the clock’s 

Parched sigh. Brick puddles

Beneath our feet; letterboxes filled

With half-chewed dreams and the return 

Of acid rain’s hunger to dissolve

All marble statues we now object to.

Chris Holdaway is a poet, publisher, and translator. He is the author of Anti-Eclogues (2025) and Gorse Poems (2022) with Titus Books. He directs the independent arts publishing house Compound Press. More at chrisholdaway.com