Fealty and Other Poems | Judy Thorn

The Firth of Forth

Take your    (  brack ets ))

(((((and lay them))))          (on)

(t h e    )) (((estuary .))     )         ))

place beside me.
Place beside me

feet upon a floor. The vernal lakeside
monument we built for birds
is full of beasts and everything is wrong.

(( (( (( ((         …         )) )) )) ))

Go on. Go forth in screes and on.

The doldrum conundrum has
continued to grow. (I have to vanish)

( ( (( ( ( ( ( ( for )

(( ( ( ( ( (( ( (     many years .)          )

(          Goodnight. )

If you should ever miss me, take the boat.
If the boat is stalling, jump and fly.
May strong winds float you, levant kids.

I sing for quarters now, into my hat.
Nothing bad I’ve ever done has been without
melody. To think I almost withered away.

Fealty

Feel our burly backs     against
the childhoods.
There is no Canada
buttered in snow
like there used to be. Sister

has no burden. Crisped
spine and you touch my cheek, saying

listen to me, your best friend died in a car crash and I sit
here at my vanity to hold you.

Learning. I’m always.
Learning. You’re never singing on the same
stage as me anymore. We step on
a rural road,

whitetail swamp sandbars close to willow country.

So go, and a going

is devotion. The wreath

is fresh.
The juniper
loops.

Rhythm Trap

Rhombus, they who call it
thistle dress it up in dew, achoo!

The bitch of Christ he was
a shoo-in, reading through

his curses, stinking from his back.
Linlithgow, they rush us

to and fro, towers racing by.
Cash, they take it fast, they roll

it up in fists. Murder, he was
curdled crows, he was weird and

real. Mustard, we were hypnotized,
hoping for a chance. Regal,

my heart was an angel, my
heart was a feral bottle shared.

Daddy, he who threw the parties,
eyes of Mull and Skye.

Mythic, now we sip the toilet,
fatty twisted mermaids line the bay.

Judy Thorn was raised by a family of working class artists in the US, the UK, and Canada. She attended Concordia University in Montreal/Tiohtià:ke where she won the Irving Layton Award. She is editor of May Wall Press, a trans-operated literary project based in Portland, Oregon. Thorn’s work can also be found or is upcoming in addanomadd, carte blanche, Cirque, Fruitslice, and Dandelion Revolution Press.