National Poetry Month : Karen Massey,

Rx for Rehab

i

You be the ruby, red flint, red wisdom spark, corporeal

apocalypse retuned to make pulse beats beyond blood maps,

new plans for peace. Roll your soul under the platen

& type that message in ions, red truth stars hammered

onto fresh platelets, clear code of metaphor circulating the body.

Do not let the mind titrate its message, let the organs

redact each remembered toxin in spent punctuation

& spark out refreshed this song sung in blood.

You’ll need this like seasons need solstices,

you’ll need this like child soldiers need

firearms replaced by bicycles, by food—

ii

Be bold body, be trust shivering through charged nights

where world citizens align in dreams beneath spirit trees

& unfurl scarlet-veined blossoms

& awaken revealed healed in long limbs

now strung with gorgeous lengths of prophecy

& hope-altered DNA & so it is

Karen Massey lives in Ottawa. Her poetry and found poems have received prizes and been published in anthologies and print publications in Canada, the US and UK, including in Aesthetica, ARC Poetry Magazine, subTerrain, Literary Review Canada and Decalogue: Ten Ottawa Poets; and online at ottawater and Experiment-O. Both of her chapbooks are from above/ground press: Bullet and Strange Fits of Beauty & Light.