Two poems by Julian Koslow

Seizure

6AM. Morse code

tapping collect

from the underworld.

I cling to sleep, clutch at dream’s

empty cape.

The boy lies next to me,

right next to me yet

nowhere near me at all;

his eyes,

when I yell into them,

are vacant

as the space between stars.

He is a fish, flopping for air.

He is a talking drum from the land

of haywire neurons, a guesswork pulse

whose every odd interval is a held

breath and whose return is a rude guest

hooded and rapping at a door where

although he’s unwelcome he knocks

and knocks and knocks.

Julian Koslow has poems recently published or forthcoming in The Avalon Literary Review and Cider Press Review. He lives in New Jersey with his spouse and two boy