Tabernacle

Or, Geranium walks for 2 weeks to the closest editor

Author

Tyler Barstow
March 03, 2023 • Est. Reading Time: 2 minutes

“Group X, No. 1, Altarpiece” - Hilma Af Klint

This week at coffee a dear friend of mine, Tim, told me to cut the shit and get Geranium over to an editor soon, and so that’s what I’m going to do. Between now and March 15th, I’ll be in old canvas pants treading the remaining grapes in the garden and getting over myself enough to let these poems be someone else’s problem for awhile. I’ll still be here every morning, but as a farewell to Geranium for the time being I thought I’d share one last one piece from it and then leave it be until it’s finished and ready for you to read in full.

Tabernacle

I want to know if the pain ends and the woman, gray and eternal as an alleycat, turns to me in the darkness of her crucible porch and says thankfully not.

We are the feast and we are feasting, after all, she says as she brings the sacred tobacco to her lips like a child’s forehead and lets its smoke billow out of her nostrils like the Tabernacle.