
untitled1.untitled by ~a-secret-key
Full-hands, hello!
and goodbye: i never thought, i never,
i-
it was a performance. i watched myself and the world
sped up, and i stroked
schrodinger's cat. it's funny now, because
nobody knows when- not really. we never will.
i ought to,
you said
i should. and so
i did, and with steady hands too. that's faith.
i'll remember everything in too much detail- but not
my own words. they fade like thoughts do.
i knew this would happen, and i considered the moment because it finally
had. surprised?
Full hands, not steady,
Full house? As if the presence swoll when it left.
We all listen
to the same words
, again
and again, an

HeatherThe world was changingHeather by ~a-secret-key
except for me. You tore through it,
a motorway
on a map. The paper moor, the
trees- still stuck in shock
and the heather, purple like a bruise
or the lips
of a greedy child-
teeth grinding
and stained red. Feasting
but somehow still
empty?
And then,
all that is left: the ringing in
my ears, that grey sheeted sky lifted miraculous
by your flock: their flashing brights
suddenly hid from view: not changing
themselves but rather changing
places.

letter to a suit of armourWe have both been here before,letter to a suit of armour by ~a-secret-key
Paused, stood, and stared before. And
I have to ask- Is it
the light that keeps you so still?
I've watched it pleading,
its yellow yolk weeping
on the shoulders of
impassive you. It finds no features to cling to.
You look seamless. So tell me,
how did you empty? Was
your person plucked away by a sharp beak? Or did
they wither and decay? Are your bones still
inside? Did you creak
shut like an oyster?
What I mean to ask is
where did your details go? Did you trade
them for a legend, quid pro quo?
And last of all, would you
describe yourself as an elephant skulled accident or
something a lit

Two poems on changeDuring the whole journey,Two poems on change by ~a-secret-key
the only thing that changed was
what we left behind:
the white streamer
unfolding like a kite, I imagined
reaching the end of the line,
being tugged back
through the blue-
never reaching the
promised land and instead falling
back to nothing
only a plaything.
-
It had always seemed so unchanging here
and I could remember it through child eyes
as well as my slightly older ones. I'd
never seen it like this
black and slick, a tape rewound and
fraying against the now-drowned
stepping stones. That tearing
broke the ancient silence, and
the silt on the bank wept.