Symbiote

That ever-present,
un-nameable weight

settled on your chest,
beating like a heart —

sparrow-wing light,
boa constrictor heavy.

You feel it, sometimes,
wrapping itself

around a moment,
fluttering, coiling.

Other times,
you transcend, forget,

only to return later
as if it were

doors and windows,
a roof, a home.

Now and then
it rears: beak and fang

of panic you tumble
into, reminding

it won't let go
until you die.

back to issue

David Adès is a Pushcart Prize nominated Australian poet currently living in Pittsburgh. He has been a member of Friendly Street Poets since 1979. His collection Mapping the World (Wakefield Press / Friendly Street Poets) was commended for the Anne Elder Award 2008. David's chapbook Only the Questions Are Eternal (Garron Publishing) was published in 2015. David's poems have been widely published in Australia and the U.S. In 2014 he won the inaugural University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor's International Poetry Prize and was shortlisted for the Newcastle Poetry Prize.