after Allen Ginsberg
You keep your dark light in jars of Vegemite, I keep my chest

air in cans of lemonade and only breathe it / in super
markets. Aisles of tinned goods, sugared cereal boxes

wrapped in all the world just like happiness, weekly
specials, flash sales! A woman smiles teeth—smash, grab.

You keep your dark light sealed in magazines
randomness / but a lottery, we’re not looking to win any. ‘Take it,

some more you want some?’ homogenised / pasteurised—‘Take it
while we’ve got some!’ We try to check it with tinned tomatoes

to take it back to make the cake, but the stuff is out of date
                                                                                       —late too late.
You keep your dark light in cans of mace, tracer arcs

explode fence lines / placards jut the sky—hold the torch
                                                                        buy, by, bye.
We try to shelter from the rain, plastic bags hang limp from limbs

like magpies, our feathers drip. But our throats are closed to song.
We talk stale with muted breath, Did you see the baby in the sausages?

The poet shot by the watermelons? Did you choke on the – – –?
You keep your dark light in shaded cloth. You outline the moon

in pen and ink underneath the Next Neon Sign, you hide
a spill of rainwater pouring baptism

wet incandescence, mother of the load.
You keep your dark light locked in passing cars, sat on the rug in back

where fox’s jaw crunches bones, there’s more to taste where there’s teeth.
Neon glows too bright on all the words, you—darkening acetone.

The cloth                    is wet                   face                  unknown.