Malaise

2025
Oil on linen
29 x 36 in

Malaise

The table - white beach of your verses,
Greenish ravines and masquerades:
Dreams foreseen,
From afar, from afar.

Up close, so close,
Your heavy nose, pocked
With doubts and fierce desires.
Alive, really,
Did you see how you lie?

Man, Mother,
You’re whitening
On your branch,
And the vine tightens.
In one move, it reclaims
Its grip.

Tropics that sting,
Rotten wood and splinters
Cutting through your gut,
Somehow, barely.

Dirty golden thorns and soul-sick waves,
Unease, walls, and nails
Forgiven.
Softly.
The vines sprawl along your slope.

Your white gaze and your astonishment
Mark the bonds and tie,
Around your neck, the greedy age,
A hollow passage,
To be filled above all.

Under the table, crossed feet,
Silent hopes,
Snakes nailed down,
Curled like a trigger.

To love poorly and keep quiet,
In the unease
Of a mortise
That no longer fits.

Sophie-Gaëlle Martin
Septembre, 2025