The following is a selected text from “Three Poems” by Colin Channer, first published in Conjunctions:75, Dispatches from Solitude.
Bubble
Love from another time beneath me
in that new white cube house, mouth-water
from my brother’s lip a dollop on my arm;
and the bed irks when he fidgets
in the wait-for-signal from the gap
between floor tiles and the ground;
not “the grounds”. . . ground . . . house bottom,
hush wilderness where short
unpainted pylons bear our house,
moral interstice of lizards, worms
and insects—where with keyholes
in our milk teeth we go crawling
with jook sticks to kill;
but not today, not now, not in this
drowsy interval, not with bellied
dog beneath us filled with pups;
expectant anguish, feels like advent
service at St. Mary’s or the held-in
glee on card nights near Christmas
when big people leave red punch
with anise to the ferns and tip to mum’s
barracks and we hear the rip of tape
in plastic sleigh beds getting pulled,
and we guess at gifts;
so, me and Gary sleepy-tangled-up this morning,
birth funk rising from the privates
of the house; peeny-wally dust makes
helix in the light the louvers plane;
the pregnant dog sounds settled in the place
where she belongs, the crawly gap,
our dim far-fetching range,
and in bed my mind gallops,
my chewed fingers work, names coming
as I pick tufts from the blue chenille
we cover with, our inner sky, thought bubble,
holder of our wishes, gases, pissings,
bun crumbs, Milo, condensed milk,
the drowsy pleasure of being above new
life as it’s ushered in not lost on me,
not lost because it’s just too big to grasp;
this is six-year-old bare love,
just adorable distress as each
pup imagined is named, my mind alert
for big dog bray or jostle, or a sightless
infant chirp, and now it comes!
newborn’s here-in-wonder cry on waking in an outtabelly underworld;
the next sound comes to mind still
Bubble
Love from another time beneath me
in that new white cube house, mouth-water
from my brother’s lip a dollop on my arm;
and the bed irks when he fidgets
in the wait-for-signal from the gap
between floor tiles and the ground;
not “the grounds”. . . ground . . . house bottom,
hush wilderness where short
unpainted pylons bear our house,
moral interstice of lizards, worms
and insects—where with keyholes
in our milk teeth we go crawling
with jook sticks to kill;
but not today, not now, not in this
drowsy interval, not with bellied
dog beneath us filled with pups;
expectant anguish, feels like advent
service at St. Mary’s or the held-in
glee on card nights near Christmas
when big people leave red punch
with anise to the ferns and tip to mum’s
barracks and we hear the rip of tape
in plastic sleigh beds getting pulled,
and we guess at gifts;
so, me and Gary sleepy-tangled-up this morning,
birth funk rising from the privates
of the house; peeny-wally dust makes
helix in the light the louvers plane;
the pregnant dog sounds settled in the place
where she belongs, the crawly gap,
our dim far-fetching range,
and in bed my mind gallops,
my chewed fingers work, names coming
as I pick tufts from the blue chenille
we cover with, our inner sky, thought bubble,
holder of our wishes, gases, pissings,
bun crumbs, Milo, condensed milk,
the drowsy pleasure of being above new
life as it’s ushered in not lost on me,
not lost because it’s just too big to grasp;
this is six-year-old bare love,
just adorable distress as each
pup imagined is named, my mind alert
for big dog bray or jostle, or a sightless
infant chirp, and now it comes!
newborn’s here-in-wonder cry on waking in an outtabelly underworld;
the next sound comes to mind still
when I think efficient—
one growl all slaughtered runts,
and every time I hear the sound
and every time I hear the sound
and every time I hear the sound
the sound the sound the sound . . .
