2018 Bennett Poetry Prize

It is something of a clean deal   say   am I  

so used to declarations   I have no other idea

how to form a sentence   inside the particular 

if I could allow it   I’d like to be adored 

here in the chamber   of take down the picture

of your dead mother   and pin me against the wall 

o later day          awakening 

never have I ever   sucked   from the shell-head 

a shrimp brain   nor vanquished the glossy mob

nor summoned an ox   but   oh 

have I ever   utterly obsessed   stretched the balloon 

over an exhaust pipe   made the sprout subject 

to noxious gas           this is the thattest of that 

above all a canal in its infancy 

loves the company   of the trashed wind.