Skinhead Tears
Christopher Barnes, UK
Phlegmatic on the clammy bed
with a quartz-iodine bulb
a glow
in tropical brilliance. I’m blinded,
see only Anthony,
revelations projecting
as clear-mirror flickers,
marionettes of light on the wall.
Fly by the cycle of crying.
His lake-white cheeks
poised in a woodchip moon.
Grimace.
His knuckles spinning tops,
boyish fingers, skin and bone.
Another ghost, another suicide
a miss all the same.