Trevor Tingle

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Indulgence is the Right Hand of Entropy

In the dream I am peeling and eating
strips of flesh from my son’s back

like fresh caught sushi.
He quivers in delight at the deep

tissue massage, silently
telling me it would be a crime

to stop. His heart now
beating slow within the empty

birdcage of the body I sought
to hallow and instead hollowed.

It is always too late
when you see the line crossed.

What is left of him shifts
in the comfort of descending sleep

and he fades like all pleasures of life,
an eggshell that will never hatch again.

Trevor Tingle spent nine years sailing tallships and five years working as a crew boat captain on the Mississippi river before getting his GED. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Physics at William & Mary. His work has appeared in numerous journals including Slipstream, Prime Numbers Magazine, and Strange Horizons. He has twice been nominated for the pushcart prize and was a finalist in the 2017 Tennessee Williams Poetry Contest.