appealing

The Maynard
Spring 2015

Christopher Patton

QED

I called out for help.
What I got was an overseer.

Petals
of the neighbours’
cherry, last

presses of fingers—.

Presses
at temples, backs
of knees, toes
and root

balls, stones, burning
grasses blaze the blood’s horizon.

Nis þæt hearu stow
it is not a nice place,
that’s litotes, sir, you
dumb fuck.

—Petals of an
unwithering fire,

wind innocent of all

harms it is and does,
have no mind to come

to come to rest in
thorns—each the face of a demon
seen edge-on.

To rest here.
Is not to call it good.
Demonstrandum.