emissary by Iain Britton
send me to the town’s
bruised core
to the late-night girls
caught out by the early sun
an implosion of grace
and the last owl tunnels home
the first magnolia opens
let me find
alternative routes lived-in dioramas
souls dyed in red iridescence
fag-ends attached to the mouths of brothers and sisters
like a born prodigal I walk
through kaleidoscopic patterns
that bedazzle paths
that keep halving quartering
curled up in my hand a message
stains and smells
won’t rub off
persons unknown read to me
amputations of sagas washed up on a beach
Iain Britton, well-known New Zealand poet has published widely in such magazines as Agenda, Stand, The Reader, Warwick Review, The Wolf Magazine, Nthposition, Blackbox Manifold, The Tower Journal, Scythe Literary Journal, Leafe Press, Horizon Review, The Literateur, Reconfigurations, Harvard Review, BlazeVOX, Drunken Boat, Zoland Poetry, Upstairs at Duroc, Jacket and the International Exchange for Poetic Invention, Moloch Journal, Anything, Anymore, Anywhere, and The Black Herald Press and Pool – a US poetry journal. Oystercatcher Press (UK) published his third poetry collection in 2009, Kilmog Press (NZ) his fourth in 2010. The Red Ceilings Press (UK) published his ebook 10 Poems in 2012.