The Doctrine of Triangles – Mathew Lyons

The Doctrine of Triangles

I look up at the tent’s converging walls, their apex
just out of arm’s reach. There is nothing to do

but watch the slow passage of the hunters’ moon
across my torso, watch my body become a map

to track us with beneath the first surveillance satellite
—we dreamers, we moving targets, we stars in transit,

we people of docksides, caravans and container parks.
Bleached skin peels with each passing cloud

as if time were scouring my shadows, my other selves,
from the world. Beneath the moon’s old gaze I am visible

and invisible, naked and meaningless, a thing
of surface only. What does a satellite know of sleep

or the comforts of darkness, of hope and home
and safety: the heart’s grand trigonometry.

…

Mathew is a London-based poet and writer. His work has been published by Ink, Sweat and Tears, The Lake, Dust, Dawn Treader, Visual Verse and Nine Muses.