Whether Mortal Men May Attain True Happiness

Dominic Leonard

I bite ice-cream with my
       front teeth & collect badly
bound books because danger
    I adore you          still I
wait for the day it will hit
me like being struck around
the face with an Alaskan
king salmon        how each
frothy bursting planet
          rolls around the other &
that such gracious witchery does
          not cease not
                    even in death
how alive now feel each
    of my sordid procedures
how romantic to hold my
body in such a way as this
     pray give me time at least to tidy
away my unextraordinary things
               before you crank me
        open like a fabulous oyster like
the larynx of HE        I pick at Him
like a scab             a yellowed
edition of City of God comes
apart in my hands
                 snaps like I meant
nothing to it       raspberry coconut
burn me


This poem is forthcoming in ‘Antimasque’ (Broken Sleep, 2021).

Dominic Leonard’s writing can be found in Pain, Poetry London, The Poetry Review, PN Review, the TLS and elsewhere. In 2019 he received an Eric Gregory Award, and his pamphlet, ‘Antimasque’, will be published by Broken Sleep in 2021. He lives and teaches in London.