The Ofi Press Magazine

Poems by Luigi Coppola (UK)

Published in The Ofi Press issue 50

The Rat & The Pigeon Just Before Dawn

he doodles up a melting tiger on her fingertips

plums her ear to the rug pissing on a man

as his meteor shrinks against a penny cobweb

just some of all that he doesn't want to say slipping

through his teeth's wire fence down his cherry overalls

mixing with marshmallow roots in a pot of pink sweat,

that swirls the sponge and iron tongue talkin-Stop!

she says Stop! Why this queen dove chat she says

I'm just a pigeon she says and you’re just a rat

let’s just listen to the aurora between us 

Pronghorn

An antilope, its genus

trapped in translation

by scratches and cracks

across its horns.

A false photo of

even numbered toes

that add up odd

as off as white

and off-white.

It arches and aims its ears

around the clearing’s curve:

the nod of wild senna

in the clawing heat.

Drawn blinkered blind,

it passes an eye:

a black Giotto circle

drawn around the end

of a tunnel that leads

to shots.

Still life: trees bent,

bark hung, leaves

pressed on grass,

senna left to stand,

frayed and licked.