Poetry

Blazon

Etched by foot or brick

HASAN MAX JAKKI

A shock heralded to the eyes, the

river frozen, frozen thick:

so missiles of distrust were

flung at its solid, whole

surface, a dissatisfactory lack

of crack snap echoing underneath,

tossed from the bridge by

those too afraid to launch their

bodies onto the pearlescent ice.

GOT2BENUT’S

If you’re going to risk your life

get a fucking apostrophe in there.

The police arrived six times

that night, called to chase footprints off the ice.

When spring comes, or even

before, the bricks & sticks & logs

which couldn’t dent the surface

will sink, monuments, into

a silty bed, hard and then nothing

to hold them up, gazing up long

and deep after their throwers have

forgotten their testing.

Jo Hateley