These three poems by Sam Canney meditate on deep connection through ordinary, but complicated experiences with love…
by: Sam Canney
Chiropractic for the Soul Lie down here, I’ll be right back, he said. I waited for 3 years and 3 months. Then he came right back empty- handed. Smiling, he told me to get comfortable as he moved my body to its side with nothing more than the trace of a need. My hairs erected as if kneeling to pray to touch his gentleness trembling inside my arms crossing over my barren chest. And why did I want to take off my shirt all of a sudden? In lieu of his retracting instruments, his hands, I wondered: could he reach the vitalism flowering in the cracks of my spine, my aching displacement? Imagining his careful mind x-ray my axial vertebrae, he continued, Deep breath in… Relax, he said, asking me to trust him. Is there anyone else after me? He caressed my ears as if turning an apple from its stem. At the tightest degrees I could feel hunger seep into my subluxations. Breathe out… I was just halfway to letting go when, in a tiny moment only a speechless eye could find he snapped my grief open and my soul plummeted from the tree. The big bang was just God snapping their fingers to the words you say right before goodbye. But here we are, now. My soul is falling from the tree. And yes, yes, it’s falling back into me.
Ghosted too much i was too much, i say as if my sense of excess were defined by the unbearability of my pain
Wake up at 2pm wandering a maze in a maze in a maze All of your blood has pooled into the left side of your body. You shift over—a jug sloshing half-full with anxiety. Now you remember, this is how to inhale: Reach for the gut with everything around you. Life ebbing like bubbles from an open Sprite. Blanket on, blanket off, blanket on, all the music pumping regret to the toes and back. Catacombs are carried in your throat, moans of every late last night losing traction. In other words, run back through your dreams until you’ve reached your final waking want and take a picture of it. High angle, some crimson lighting, shadows just so. Remember your reason for sleeping has nothing to do with slumber. Poke your head from the covers, peek-a-boo bitch! Breakfast is ready, but you’re hungry for the time they said they had a good time last night. 1,218 last nights ago. There’s nothing to do today, anyhow. Close your eyes & feel the pump of the dance floor echo, slosh until you’re still again, let the bubbles go.
Sam Canney is a gay nomad originally from a small conservative town in North Carolina, now residing in Brooklyn, NY. A facilitator of creative consciousness, he workshops at Brooklyn Poets and The Sadagat School of Motion and Text. Among his works include poetry in On-the-High Literary Journal, Sunday Mornings at the River, and the forthcoming issue of Vocivia Magazine.
