New Poetry by James Diaz

Monty IV

Cold hands how do I say

go before me

lay everyplace

you've been

on my body bone

thigh-offspring crawling

crystal clear

water heart gushing

at the edges

screaming 'last night

I loved you so bad

I thought it would not end'

bending toward your oak

and acrylic fingertips

water willows

you don't understand

I write because

you are death-spirit

and I am compact

like a lover

from out of the woods

a compass pressed

into your breast bone

inking three thousand names

for 'enduring' and 'getting through'

and 'walk it off, kid'

that I cannot ingest you like air

that so much of you escapes me

that my filament, my soul bruise

burns in the aftermath

gathering your crumb trail

weapon of love cut out of paper

these words won't do

but I'll say them anyway

I love... (...)

- James Diaz 2016

James Diaz lives in upstate New York. He is the founding editor of the online literary arts journal Anti-Heroin Chic. His work has appeared in HIV Here & Now, Foliate Oak, Chronogram, Indiana Voice Journal, Pismire, Epigraph, and Cheap Pop Lit. http://heroinchic.weebly.com/