Mike Bagwell
Intaglio
Under my skin is not blood,
but a blood-red door.
A dull ache like my childhood
where shadows settle in cold drops.
I submit: a teardrop necklace
containing teardrops, ad infinitum.
Perfectly round:
the hole punched through me.
I speak in keys. I graph the sublime
in concentric circles, swallow
the stratosphere of red light.
Like a word stalled on tongue.
If I dream, I’m still two-dimensional,
trapped in every alphabet.
Walk through me,
I sing aslant.
The opposite of relief.
I am what is cut away.
Mike Bagwell’s latest thing is exploring gratitude as a poetic form until it's overwhelming, having recently overcome a bout of mutual antagonism towards the sky. He is a writer and software engineer in Philly and received an MFA from Sarah Lawrence. His work appears in Action Spectacle, ITERANT, Sprung Formal, Heavy Feather, HAD, Bodega, Okay Donkey, and others, some kindly nominating him for a Pushcart. He is the author of the chapbooks A Collision of Soul in Midair (Bottlecap Press 2023), Or Else They Are Trees (El Aleph Press), and micros from Ghost City Review and Rinky Dink Press. Find him at mikebagwell.me, @low_gh0st, or playing dragons with his daughters.
Return to July 2024 Edition
Under my skin is not blood,
but a blood-red door.
A dull ache like my childhood
where shadows settle in cold drops.
I submit: a teardrop necklace
containing teardrops, ad infinitum.
Perfectly round:
the hole punched through me.
I speak in keys. I graph the sublime
in concentric circles, swallow
the stratosphere of red light.
Like a word stalled on tongue.
If I dream, I’m still two-dimensional,
trapped in every alphabet.
Walk through me,
I sing aslant.
The opposite of relief.
I am what is cut away.
Mike Bagwell’s latest thing is exploring gratitude as a poetic form until it's overwhelming, having recently overcome a bout of mutual antagonism towards the sky. He is a writer and software engineer in Philly and received an MFA from Sarah Lawrence. His work appears in Action Spectacle, ITERANT, Sprung Formal, Heavy Feather, HAD, Bodega, Okay Donkey, and others, some kindly nominating him for a Pushcart. He is the author of the chapbooks A Collision of Soul in Midair (Bottlecap Press 2023), Or Else They Are Trees (El Aleph Press), and micros from Ghost City Review and Rinky Dink Press. Find him at mikebagwell.me, @low_gh0st, or playing dragons with his daughters.
Return to July 2024 Edition