by Shane McCrae

                                                               I squeezed through
the door between the field of light
       Of the trapped light between      the field and
       The HR Bunker      as I rolled in
-to the cramped doorframe I was might

Have been      if living I was me
       And mine complete in every part
       My fingertips      my eyes my heart
If cut off      out      me still      a knee

-cap shattered and the shards like slivers
       Each tweezed from the      basin jagged pearls
       A treasure of myself      though curls
The wave as if it were the river’s

Hair the river has no head
       No body      is no river but
       Its waves I might have been      was what
My parts had been alive      if dead

Not like the dead are dead but al
       -most half        -alive still        if in pieces
       And as the first piece rolling squeezed just
Barely squeezed through the door      a ball

Of marrow tightened by the squeezing
       Me squeezed and tightened      the other side
       Of the doorframe stretched away the tide
In which the river finds its being

Rolls far from where      the waves in which
       It finds its being meet the sea
       The doorframe stretched away from me
Became a hallway as it stretched

As more of me and      more and more came
       Through the unending door through      one
       Side of the door and I heard then
Law barking in the walls      The doorframe

Between the field inside the mountain
       That      shithole and the Bunker is
       The only part of Hell that is
-n’t human isn’t flesh      not counting

The girders sometimes in the skin
       ’Cause even here the bones run out
       Nah      it’s not flesh      the boss shits doubt
And that’s the pipe      doubt comes out clean

In the HR Bunker      bodiless
       So maybe that’s the underside
       Of flesh it      isn’t human I’d
Lie to you      sure but      not about this

You’re the first solid doubt the boss
       Has had in years      a century
       Fuck if I know      shit      honestly
I’ve never been to the Bunker gos

-sip and weird fucking      looks from demons
       Who say they know      demons who’ve seen
       The other side of the asshole      when
You get there so will I I’ll      see then

Yeah fuck you I will see then Law
       Stopped talking      and the tunnel stopped
       Lengthening all      at once I dropped
All of me      dropped before I saw

The end of the tunnel      I was through
       Before I saw the end of the door
       The other      side of the door      before
I knew      I had      rolled glowing blu
       -ish white and fire      to the Bunker floor

Poem copyright 2021 by Shane McCrae. All rights reserved.

See another poem from Shane McCrae debuted on The Fight & The Fiddle: “Law’s Dream.”

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Read more in this issue: Interview | Critical Essay | Writing Prompt