God
by and published in Edition Eleven of Pomegranate
Snail, you carry your chapel on your back.
Your twin horns, delicate antennae,
tuning-in to every prayer.
The immaculate, incredulous maths
of your conch,
the perfect curves an
effortless challenge to chance,
to impossibility.
“How do you walk with one foot?”
You are almost the answer
to your own riddle.
Snail, your fiat Dei
as you peek out of your monastery
is an, is an admirable stab
at an unavoidable question.
But I cannot help but be taken
aback time and time again
by the inevitable
cheap crisp crunch
first foot out the door
first thing in the morning.
It’s the undeniable violence which
underpins everything,
the chilling thresh
of the thrush’s neck.
I’m in half a mind, snail. Half a mind.
Joe Dresner
Joe Dresner is a 24 year old poet from Sunderland. He works at the Royal Academy of Arts and lives in South London. His work has been published in Poetry Review, Ambit, The SHOp and Poetry Salzburg Review.