1.
Everything that rises must converge;
or rocket in reverse.
I ruminate, lifting fallen coleslaw.
By this very retrieval I learn
an equal, alternative law:
All that descends must return.
2.
I saw a hand, like sin, demanding down a balloon
which retreated dog-like, each strike, to its lowest point;
I watched a more authoritative force hoist
it up again, as if an infant with mother baboon.
3.
My Golden Rule requires this submission:
myself, an Isaac possum, sauna iguana
with rife parts splayed, fig leaves fecal;
myself, set apart, as if on porcelain,
to await the sharp prongs of the harpy eagle,
depending on its distinctive vision;
to prey upon indiscriminate hunger for cavalier
exposé, be lifted, be laid upon upmost
limb, join droplets once dreg now cloud,
innards out, dying my good life loud.
Hear Josiah A. Cox talk about this poem on the Reformed Journal Podcast:
Photo by Laura Carrasco Morón on Unsplash
