A man in a green mask
asks me to count
backwards from one
hundred. At ninety-eight
the table begins to spin;
I feel as if I'm being swallowed
by the light
that hangs above me
like giant insect eyes.
Ican mark time
by the surgeries; the way
my grandmother marked
my growth
with pencil slashes
on her kitchen doorframe.
Each time I awake
from that abyss
where God refuses to dwell —
my mouth a desert;
my eyes two stones
sunk in my skull —
some small part of me
has died, some
small part reborn]
— Jason Irwin
Jason Irwin's first collection, Watering the Dead, won the 2006/2007 Transcontinental Poetry Award and was published in 2008 by Pavement Saw Press. Most recently, he's had work published in Potomac, Grey Sparrow and Future Cycle Press' anthology American Society: What Poets See. He lives in Highland Park. Many writers featured in Chapter & Verse are guests of radio show Prosody, produced by Jan Beatty and Ellen Wadey. Prosody airs every Saturday morning on 90.5 FM.
