Abandonment


︎︎︎ Atsushi Ikeda

︎Dec 15, 2023

The grace framing the trees

Crossed ankles on a wavering doll
No, hope was never material

I imagined myself in contacts—
Thinned to delusion
I saw better

Rising steady like the formula for a story
Colder and closer to the stratosphere

But a wisp of hair loosed is enough
To enlighten me, bring the hundred
Breathings down

And I broached sky
In the between frames where
The automatic let you go—

                Long day
You put your music in

So poetry rides like the side of a knife
Through the bread left on the table
Serration heaving
Makes a sound
How else do I know morning?

Up the sky I’m a jellyfish
My reason is all this billowing:

The reel’s invisible appetite

The grace in framing.



Atsushi Ikeda is a writer/musician in Montreal, whose work has appeared in Apocalypse Confidential, new_sinews, ergot., The Ex-Puritan, petrichor, and more.

Also by Atsushi: Color Theory