Three Poems by Mathew Yates

breakfast

making as little noise as possible
you scrape your soul out of its home
in a bowl on a shelf in your brain
& you smear it on a heavily toasted
piece of sweet bread & you
stand before a crowd staring
at your mouth stained with buttermilk
& you eat it slowly until it is gone
& the crowd blinks wearily
as you brush the crumbs away
& you go home to cultivate a new
soul & buy more bread & prepare
once again for another night’s fast

as you wish

as you wish

as you were

before any of this
i wished the sea

were us  before any
of this    i wish

there were
anything at all

to believe in
or if anything
to stand on or
understand as

believing is a thing

to stand under
like a ladder
and the luck is

a sea  were you
a sea  were any

of us here before

any of this
as you were

as you wish

Please Wash Your Hands

there are foam-soap suds
at the bottom of the sink
crackling madly at the setting air

the fear of faucets    of clean 
slates    pervades the mess
of this room    white & chemical 

& resembling Venus Anadyomene
in the way it is seeped down the drain
gone in ten minutes & forever

memorialized by the scent it leaves
honeysuckle mimics    frothing Springs
fizzing like a saint at the stake

calm in disintegration    is there a reason
i can hear it so well    that i want to follow
it    clean at least in the place it’s headed

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BIO: Mathew Yates (@m_yates) is a poet & artist from Kentucky. Their poetry can be found in Kissing Dynamite Journal, Epigraph Magazine, marlskarx, Barren Magazine, & more. Their artwork can also be found in two recent releases: Scream Into my Mouth as a Waterfall by C. Aloysius Mariotti, published by Rhythm & Bones Press; & Flutter by Kristin Garth, published by Twist in Time Press.