Pneumatic Winter in Portland, OR
By Theo Langdale

 

in the second of the sick months
the cat’s litterbox beginning to reek
the snow sticks longer than it ever does
this side of the mountain, anyway
february passes slow & septic like
chicken broth gone cold or
my perpetual postnasal drip
bedsheets brittle with crumbs
lungs filled with something foreign
i can’t help it
i could never let myself be empty
sweat-slicked fever dreams of you close
to my aching chest, infectious and raw
lover-wounds tender again by morning
when i roll over in bed and there’s just
more bed
and there’s so much time to kill before
the lungs dry up enough to mean something
has ended, or something has just begun
i cough up cat litter and my throat bleeds
and there’s nothing to do about it but wait
and hope the body is strong enough to
make it through til springtime

 

Theo Langdale from UK is an American-Briton poet. His work explores the metaphysical within a tangible sense of place. He was published in Issue 12 of SCAB Magazine.