Mathias Svalina
Terrible Baby
After the rain you step outside. A tree has fallen in
the field, insides hollow & rotted, this tree that had
seemed so solid, so tall, now fallen in the field that
you swear had been an apartment building before
the storm, an apartment building you stared at each
night, windows golden with privacies, old men on
the balconies, loose faces dangling over cigarettes,
bats rising from the chimney at dusk like a boy
falling down an entire flight of stairs, hitting each
stair, cartwheeling, almost seeming to come apart, &
then landing, unhurt, on his feet. Go to the hollow &
rotted out tree. Dip a hand into the rot. Pull out a
single apple, the size of a knuckle, as round as the
chord that has ringed in your head since the
morning you slid the wrong side of the knife across
your skin & your body undid itself & a baby
emerged from your undoneness. A terrible baby.
The kind of baby only a king could love. Then the
terrible baby takes his first steps, dragging you,
undone as a storm, behind him.
The Beast
The beast has the eyes of a beautiful thing. The beast
has the body of a well. The beast’s teeth are
melodies. The stars only shine on the beast when
someone loves him. I told him everything. After
everything I said he’d say I don’t care. The more he
did not care, the more love I grew, like a
government. The beast is not hiding & waiting for
me. He is not waiting, breathing quietly, to spring
out & scare me. Yet, every moment I am braced for
the scare. The beast’s fear lives in me as I live in me. I
loved the beast, how a wish loves the well. And still,
like a wish after being wished & granted & forgotten.
Invent Yourself a Shipwreck
I meet myself in a park
decorated with a mural
of the two of us
killing each other
while smiling.
We fall asleep
looking at the mural.
We wake to the mural.
Day after day.
Day after day.
It is our duty to look
at our violence
as depicted in art.
Duty becomes a habit
& then a chore
& then a religion
& then a secret.
Mathias Svalina is a poet & runs a dream delivery service. His book Thank You Terror is forthcoming from Big Lucks.