Torn

I know the vines
that pin a desire to the dirt.
I walk the miles of compulsive
destruction and the weeping despair
that laps all light from the stream.
I sit bound to the spot. In and out
of days with blood under my fingernails
and hands that can’t stay still.
Have I not given enough? Have I placed
meaning in the marketplace or belief in the computer-screen throne
of inner Armageddon? Like a split
artichoke, my shadow lands on stone and on grass.
It is only shadow but heavy
in its dues.

Allison Grayhurst is a poet living in Toronto. Her work has appeared in The Antigonish Review, Dalhousie Review, The New Quarterly, Wascana Review, Poetry Nottingham International, The Cape Rock and White Wall Review, among other places. Her book, Somewhere Falling, was published by Beach Holme Publishers in Vancouver in 1995.