2023 Commended - Malak O'Neill, 'Sonnets On A Night With Aliocha'

MALAK O'NEILL

Commended - 2023 Tower Poetry Competition, 'The Planets'

 

Sonnets On A Night With Aliocha

And so you’re sitting on the grass with the

Beautiful boy. And he’s pointing upwards,

Beyond the sky’s ends, he seems to see a

Fraction of himself reflected there. Birds

 

Throw their nimble bodies too like our hearts,

Aliocha, swift and eager against

Ouranos’ supple, bleeding skin. Sparks

Striking out against the air between; tensed

 

Bodies pouring into one another.

It is felt, and known, but it is not said.

And so he’s pointing at the sky, some other

Body- But you’re looking at his hand, red,

 

And the sinews lying dormant just there,

As though they have not struck you- soul laid bare.

 

 

Aliocha sees Venus dance with Mars,

And points up at them still. Your gaze trickles

Down his arm- it doesn't leave you in shards

As it might have once. He moves in ripples,

 

And exists in glances and pulled corners

Of mouth. Amongst these, the bodies of gods,

He seems most at home- unlike the mourners

With their mouths wide open, making even odd.

 

He points to Ganymede, And you see

Him reflected there. And you see yourself

Snapping the neck of that eagle, beastly.

Does love make us mad? The arrow itself?

 

There’s no constellation Aliocha.

I did not point at what was out of sight

 

But it was his coat that covered me

All of that night.