Afters
Brother of the badly rolled joint
Stashed behind ear. Procession
Of tobacco caught in the fine
Hairs of your neck.
Light fell thin over water,
Turned to mist. Thoughts writhed
So quick I almost
Didnāt think them.
The canal sang sixty six miles til it
Hit the mere. A drain full of fag butts.
I wanted to sing til the light syruped,
Til my legs were absolute as a watched sunrise.
My face dissolved and yours of
Shrub and stubble. Good nights
And bad nights discerned in millilitres,
I became the reluctant current
Turned to sludge by union
And industry. I gathered
In my hands as beads
The words spoken: antlers, lightships,
Suckers, strand of oaks. We laughed
About your girl and I became the
Smoke bristling the back of
My throat.
The closed doors
Of your house I glimpsed but
Pretended not to. An
Unmade bed. Still offering
To come round yours so you wouldnāt
Guess which muddy banks
I haunted. Emaciated light
Snuffling out the cherry.
In memory, I insert mountains
On ground which once
Felt smooth, or went unnoticed.
Stashed behind ear. Procession
Of tobacco caught in the fine
Hairs of your neck.
Light fell thin over water,
Turned to mist. Thoughts writhed
So quick I almost
Didnāt think them.
The canal sang sixty six miles til it
Hit the mere. A drain full of fag butts.
I wanted to sing til the light syruped,
Til my legs were absolute as a watched sunrise.
My face dissolved and yours of
Shrub and stubble. Good nights
And bad nights discerned in millilitres,
I became the reluctant current
Turned to sludge by union
And industry. I gathered
In my hands as beads
The words spoken: antlers, lightships,
Suckers, strand of oaks. We laughed
About your girl and I became the
Smoke bristling the back of
My throat.
The closed doors
Of your house I glimpsed but
Pretended not to. An
Unmade bed. Still offering
To come round yours so you wouldnāt
Guess which muddy banks
I haunted. Emaciated light
Snuffling out the cherry.
In memory, I insert mountains
On ground which once
Felt smooth, or went unnoticed.
I stash the lighter in
My pocket, leave my hand
There to get warm.
Re-crook the waterways.
Let what needs to bleed bleed
My pocket, leave my hand
There to get warm.
Re-crook the waterways.
Let what needs to bleed bleed
Dylan McNulty-Holmes is a writer and editor who lives in Berlin. He is the author of the chapbook Survivalism for Hedonists (Querencia Press, 2023), and the longform digital poem Half a Million Mothers, which was shortlisted for the 2022 New Media Writing Prize. His writing has been illustrated and made into a T-shirt, live scored by a disco band, and translated into five languages. A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, his work has appeared in journals including Split Lip, DIAGRAM, Puerto del Sol and The New Welsh Review. Find him at dylanmcnultyholmes.com.
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