The Game or One of its Many Variants
by Chris Emslie
for Kat
It’s so hard to dress these branches in adventure
Our hands are occupied signalling from the
hillside This is a digital catastrophe big as
a city block imported from a Japanese
movie Dear girl no longer on fire who
authorised that flightpath forever arrowing your
childhood? We can build microcosms
in our smoky backyards and burn whatever
silence the night leaves behind It’s not the
falling debris that bothers me We’re well
versed in the art of Tetris but just say some-
thing up there is dropping all these cinderblocks
Wouldn’t you call that God? Or possibly
we are waiting for a flash of purple in the
rear-view mirror some sign that we
surpassed expectation This is real
as the fire no longer enamoured with our limbs
This is a colour scheme to designate real-
ness like how you know what I mean
when I keep insisting it’s dangerous to go alone
*
Chris Emslie is assistant editor at ILK journal. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Birdfeast, > kill author and the Lambda Literary Review, among others. He lives in Scotland and is best at the games he is too shy to play.
