This might be my favourite of yours, Cameron. It's really, very good. I like how the opening eases into the more rarefied language with its very demotic tone. Perhaps something about the looser perameters of non-met encouraged this. Anyway, much of the language here is really exquisite. I may be referring to my children as "lithe fleshhouses" for a while.
At first I wasn't sure about "pastness", wondering why simply "past" wouldn't do, and also thinking it perhaps a bit of a mouthful so close to "cellflakes" and "snakeskinned". But reading it again aloud it does work, sonically and conceptually. A very accomplished poem, I think. I like the closing lines decisive return to the speaker's present.
Mark
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