DICK / Jayson Iwen

DICK by Jayson Iwen

30 pages

Published in a numbered edition of 100 copies.

“Call me

between paying and being paid

an everlasting itch

ten inches

like a candle

in a tomb

restless needle

sojourning

in the body of a man

phantom

to which the hand belonged

unsheathes the head

like a sun-toasted pear

to show forth in one array

a high social polish

flesh

athirst

for fear

standing

before me

my shadow here on earth

its long angle

the meat

on its passage out"

Jayson Iwen is the author of Six Trips in Two Directions, A Momentary Jokebook, Gnarly Wounds, and Roze & Blud, which won the 2020 Miller Williams Poetry Prize. He’s also co-translator of Lighthouse for the Drowning and Come, Take a Gentle Stab (forthcoming), which introduces the major Arabic poet Salim Barakat to English for the first time. Jayson currently lives in Duluth, Minnesota.