One Poem by Brandon Shane

 

Chiromancy

 

Now, the hard ridges

of your face soften,

two weeks, our silent movement

is buoyant and parasitical

on ocean hulls,

oil rigs pooling

black circles in the dark,

hearing ribs crack

some are yours and

some are mine.

 

They could not understand,

rosemary plucked

and placed on ice,

these tangled roots

will appear on shelves

and ply apart:

 

I am bitter like the melon

my grandfather sheared,

and biographically sick

like sewer flow

or the exorcisers of trees

drawing forests.

 

I have been reading

palm lines

envisioning the dead,

a hunched woman

matted in black

circles my bed

because I

circle my bed.

 

Faces are purple

and then become white,

the rest is a sacred

burial ground

how

we have happened

 

how all desire

becomes

need.

Brandon Shane is a poet and horticulturist, born in Yokosuka, Japan. You can see his work in Rattle, trampset, Variant Lit, The Chiron Review, Stone Circle Review, IceFloe Press, The Marrow Poetry, One Art Poetry, among others. He graduated from Cal State Long Beach with a degree in English.