Harper Walton (they/them) has a Master’s Degree in creative writing from the Paris School of Arts and Culture. Their work has been featured by Magma, 1883 Magazine, Whitechapel Gallery, Venice Architecture Biennale and more. They edited the anthology Carnival at the End of the World for Buoy Press.

Sextant

I killed an unkillable plant
which reminded me of you

so I sent you a postcard with
a midnight festival of backlit trees

how’s life on the road?
I asked, knowing

you would only receive it
upon your return

on tour means something so different
to a musician or soldier

just like sleight of hand
to a magician or thief

I imagined you on stage
banging a cymbal

seeing yourself
as a symbol in sweat

I remembered you
back in your studio

your turpentine tirade
your slow-sipped gimlet

gulping riboflavin supplements, giggling
as I roasted your vegan beefcake bandmate

was I your stalwart
or your warts and all?

why can’t I forget the softness
of your underjaw

a back-alley uppercut away
from dislocated vertebrae

or the silent killer of your electric engine
tesla coiling my central nervous system

or your compass eyes disorienting
the sextant of my wayward body?

maybe I’m an anagram
of a word that doesn’t exist yet

maybe you’re a superposition
existing in multiple states until measured

one of these days I’ll be delivered
from evil by some holy postie

and you’ll be left with a mark
of unknown provenance

like a bruise you don’t remember
being hurt for