Daniel Sluman

DOPPELGANGER

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eyes waltzed behind morphine in the bath
& braced for the flood from the watering can
you pour with a delicacy that makes me weep
holding my flaccidness in my hands
the boiler beyond repair    I wash my hair
you ask if it needs the hot dashed to free
my locked joints   how my doppelganger drags
our lives beyond the poverty-line once again
hissing in your ear     how fucking pathetic
& you'll say you can't bear this weight in a week
you'd rather be alone than with this crumpled mess
of apologies & mistakes that shakes in the corner
of the bedroom     a towel over my shoulders
that once tensed over your pupil's bloom
I'll keep this lightning trapped in my hip
my strange weather     the dent I sank into
will raise from the sofa in a mist of cologne
& possibilities     the only heirloom
the syllables of my name & what they meant
at a time when you loosened love-songs
in the shower & said them like amen

Daniel Sluman's poems have appeared widely in journals such as Cadaverine, Popshot, Shit Creek Review, and Under the Radar. He received an MA in Creative & Critical Writing from the University of Gloucestershire in 2012 and his debut full-length collection, Absence Has a Weight of It's Own, was published in 2012. His second collection, the terrible, will be published Autumn/Winter 2015, also with Nine Arches Press.