From WTP Vol. V #6

Archipelagos (Made of Collapsing)
By Alexander McCoy

I.
In the hollows,
between the trees, where the woods
come into sharp
relief, like ribs,
like bone-shards
stretched with breath,

Five o’clock, and already the windows
are starting to bleed. How fragile it looks

chambering

in the light, this little world of ours, rough
and looming over the skin of it all.

…………………beneath
my collarbones, my unsung
guitar strings answer
the dark of your mouth (again
and again), singing all
of the bruises.

II.‌
…………………Let sunlight slip like halos across my eyes,
…………………around the shadow you left behind, climbing

out of each other and back
into our own bodies by breakfast.

III.

In our eyes, the stars col-

What a lovely eclipse

lapse beautifully
inside a vanishing room,

you continue to be.

like scribbled notes across blue music,
rejoicing, we are here,
…………………we are here, again.

Alexander McCoy earned his undergraduate degree in Theater Arts from Clark University, where he got his start as a writer and performer of slam poetry. His work can be found in Platypus Press, Bottlecap Press, and Sixfold.