Zygote

The grind of train wheels
Slick at the track,
Scares off the rats
That echo in their black waters.

A millennium of winters
Enters each whiskered girl
Which buys each white leg
Grown to charm snakes:

Or charm the charmer.

The bounce of sunrise in cold water
Frosted glass all reflections ghost
Most poppy beds rest tired heads;
Crow abstracts his thoughts absent daughter,
The mirror of fearful backwards man

Makes pseudonym into a grin,
And thanks him for the feast,
And she – a stalk – settles the score
Mirror reads: Tuo;

Our two tawdry minds
Distilled – we embark in single file –
And when songbirds rush to the pulp
Of this embryo, never existed anyway.


(Written in about an hour. Wrote one side of A5 paper of notes, typed up, then moved some lines around. Had a mirror in room, on floor leaning againt wall, and cold glass of water. Heard birds outside. Line: "Millennium of winters" came from Frank Turner lyric "She went winters without me," which I thought sounded like "She went ten winters without me." I just took what I thought, and changed it to millennium.

"Tuo" is pronounced "Two." It is the mirror reflection of "Out."

I also took the first two stanzas and put them in a poem of their own:

The grind of train wheels
Slick at the track,
Scares off the rats
That echo in their black waters.

A millennium of winters
Enters each whiskered girl
Which buys each white leg
Grown to charm snakes:
Or charm the charmer.