put your hand 
gun in the offering plate where bear claws ring the bear white skull 
poet ethanol products get transported through kansas 
from los angeles to new york the family lives 
in cardboard anything helps the city the body 
even when it hurts taya smith said i’ll sing until the miracle comes 
a synthesis sweet brown 
black white city country provincial universal alive 
with these contradictions again jim m. intimated we have earned the right 
to call ourselves citizens of the world and heaven she adds jim’s and yours 
God she and i and you a grown man sobbing in our arms 
bruised by blunt force by fist stone stick whip boot 
who forgives like you the mountains above glacier 
gunsight and wolf and the sigh from my beloved’s chest after 
 
                                                                 iv.9 

Shann Ray | Atomic Theory 432, iv.10
Contents | Mudlark No. 64 (2018)