three poems

by Seth Rice

Shoot of Weight

the nails are strung to fall

on the package of

porcelain legs

through sweating white out

and into the end of a ring.

over dilations,

to spike slaps of pink

and gut frames

trodden by laced grey.

to shoot of weight,

shoot completely

and end

in the black that wets the surge

of a lucid, conclusive color.

Vinegar

I had forgotten

plaqued mornings

down streets

with springed pursuit

and lighting days

around the Arsenal pubs

with a matchday greasy spoon.

walking home

watering off—

your toweled heat

to hold

in the hallway

between laundry loads

and your vinegar running soles.

A Sonnet for the Complete Destruction of Every Day

Inside our corral of brown, leaning grass,

the trees from drugged seeds at last distended

will contemplate the cloudlines as they pass,

from a soil that lies, in time unmended.

Bring a clay cup, fill a sandstone pitcher;

speak plainly through your open, verdant palms;

drop an axe and make the gutter richer;

ignore the sound of laden, stung alarms.

With a raised collar, wear a green, wax coat,

and light a burn that refuses to conclude.

Recall a dawn’s extraordinary throat,

and estimate the curl of time subdued.

And spectate every evening’s last arrest,

watch hopeless precision descend abscessed.

Photo of Seth Rice

BIO: Seth Rice is a writer and music journalist from Folkestone, England. He is currently studying for an MFA in Creative Writing and an MA in English at McNeese State University in Louisiana. His short stories have been published in Thirteen Bridges Review and are forthcoming in Seize the Press.