MICHAEL GOODFELLOW

Michael Goodfellow lives in Halifax, Canada. His poetry has recently
appeared in Turk Magazine and bottle rockets, among other journals.
He is the editorial assistant at The Dalhousie Review.

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Within

In the hospital they showed me
glossy, semitransparent black

and white ultrasounds of human
hearts: photographs taped to the walls

of the room, panels of white light.
Asking if I had once known you.

In the lines, contours. In the folds.
Comparing textbook diagrams

of the organ, with thin straight lines
labelling each section, pointing

to parts and valves within. Arrows
dissecting, every direction.

They held the sheets in a stack up
to the white fluorescent light: all

of the veins blood can take. I hold
each one up individually,

my closed hand to each plastic sheet.






That fade

In life you ran barefoot in shorts and bathed
naked in the lake. The sun turned every

thing, grass, leaves, plastic forgotten outside,
a lighter colour except your skin, turned

dark shades in contrast. In death you lose your
flesh and are only spirit handling a life

less replica of legs and hands, feet and
head. Death-dark glasses to see in glaring

death, reflecting white light. You spend your days
building tunnels through the light that fade when

the colours come back. When the death chill lifts.
Then you are buried in the spring thaw.






To bubbles and breaking

It's a forty minute walk to
the lake that you have never seen.

What you never will. That I want
it to be for you. The islands

slope up from the bottom. The clear
bottom through the water shines. The

hill to climb before the edge, the
other edge of its curved coastline.

Once in everything becomes
opposites. Breathing, intake and

outtake. Breaking, kissing under
water. Broken promises to

your boyfriend are. Kisses turning to
bubbles and breaking on the

surface. Bending, the gravity
against shimmering carbon

dioxide bubbles. Bending, our
bodies' outlines on the surface.

Me, what is is not. What you are to.

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