Poetry by Giles Goodland

I feel like the yodel inside the goat, I’m gathering together my yawn. You can tell thoughts from the way someone yawns: a yawn is a transcription of thoughts, sped up 200 times. The troughs and peaks come out as a novel or a song. You cannot predict the shape of a yawn, it’s an improvisation, your yawn prefigures your last breath, your face in a crowd receding from you. Now distant, it turns its back. You will never know your yawn again.

Giles Goodland is a UK based poet and lexicographer. His last book: Of Discourse (Grand Iota, 2023).

Photo by Kasey McCoy on Unsplash