Two Poems – Fabrice Poussin

In your Breast

I scream in your ear at the speed of light

but not a shiver in the adversity of darkness.

.

I push on your shoulder at the height of daylight

like a statue of ancient marble you stand.

.

I cry upon your breast as the babe you once lost

to feel but the frozen ice of your stony veins.

.

I run upon the great hill at the foot of Everest

to find but a bottomless desert in a valley of death.

.

I ask whether you can read the signs of a past tongue

to your shudder as only within a cage do you exist.

.

I watch the corpse of blue and steel in motion

begging for it to ponder the appeal I attempt to speak.

.

I too freeze as molten lava from a dying core

and it seems you laugh in the night of your alcove. 

Parts for Sale

It is late

He might drift off into the dark void

or ponder an uncertain destiny.

.

It is time

for yet another tear to wet a lost hour

and fancy the good he can still do.

.

Parts for sale

A fresh soul glows on the glassy shelves

every moment a gift to the needy.

.

Light has gone

The limbs heavy as stone frozen to steel,

a statue now sits at the thinker’s task.

.

Everything must go

He will not arise again from this dream

seeking only relief to end his infernal storm.

Fabrice Poussin teaches French and English at Shorter University. Author of novels and poetry, his work has appeared in Kestrel, Symposium, The Chimes, and many other magazines. His photography has been published in The Front Porch Review, the San Pedro River Review as well as other publications.