Like the small hole by the path-side something lives in,
in me are lives I do not know the names of,
nor the fates of,
nor the hungers of or what they eat.
They eat of me.
Of small and blemished apples in low fields of me
whose rocky streams and droughts I do not drink.
And in my streets — the narrow ones,
unlabeled on the self-map —
they follow stairs down music ears can’ t follow,
A thing too perfect to be remembered:
stone beautiful only when wet.
* * *
Blinded by light or black cloth —
so many ways
not to see others suffer.
* * *
Too much longing:
it separates us
like scent from bread,
rust from iron.
* * *
From very far or very close —
the most resolute folds of the mountain are gentle.
The three men now stood satisfied, arms crossed,
joking among themselves, but only moments before
they hadn’ t been laughing. It had taken all three
to bind the struggling man. First, to limit his movement,
they had duct-taped his wrists together behind his back:
for that, one man had held his legs and another had pinned him,
one hand on each shoulderblade and one knee on his head,
at his left temple, grinding his right cheek and eye into
the dust and straw and dried shit that formed the floor of the barn.
defunct
list of
common
names
proxy
for the
bearer
nor’ wester
buffets gear
reach
into our
canisters
“Cassirer”
drawn and
sewn into
my lapels
assembly of
illegal men
peril will
not know
two
Roman
slaves rain
the rage
passes
through our
teeth into
interior
pneumatic
doors
my evening
of moniker
stamped
upon boxes
of envelopes
water
relives
reservoir
boat
bottom
draft
displaced
°
lineal
thought
backward
body
no one
knows
the brains
I am now
tree
an oar
origin
joints ruptured
soak in
deep ink
°
wallpaper
remnant
flower
float
chandelier
brief case
hundred words
logged
erode
my
Arabic
congestion
of resin
person
As I saw your face nearing
my face, snow fell through
a keyhole and opened the door.
We went inside and watched
windows wax green and gold.
Spring, we decided, was more
oppressive than winter with
its alyssum and clover
and the sheer weight of life
crowding us off the page.
We stayed in bed for years
and took our cures patiently
from each other’ s cups.
We read Bleak House and
stored our money in socks.
Nothing opened as we did.
Follow where all is. / Follow the transfused. / Follow what is still and what is still-attracting.
That light / That beauty / That love / That, that is massy-borne and rising up, like a drifting star.
Like stars lift. / Like lifting stars. / Like the lifting of stars, I rose. I rise.
Rose. Rose. Like a thing beyond words: satiated.
Let lie in the ravage. / Let lie in what is ravaged-wrought.
Why fear what hasn’ t become?
I beckon, like light. / Like a star, I will beckon. / You will oblige. / You will lend the want. You will eclipse my blinding.
We liked to stick it in a bb gun and shoot it.
We tattooed with it. We said hallelujah,
the poor man’ s tanning lotion.
Then the frack wells began, something black
capping the water and we got high
watching a green-backed heron die.
We got funny at Clarion, flung
each other’ s underwear into the trees.
Why was it we got naked there
and nowhere else? Maybe we knew
we were getting good and ugly, rusted inside
as the trucks we rode into the water.
Maybe we knew we only appeared
Just seen, running, and silver-gray
along the top tube of a fence between myrtles and me,
too slinky for a bird and even at this distance
unmistakably a quadruped and
nimble, some sort of unspoiled animal, but which?
It ran as if away
from a threat, peril was everywhere,
a footsole crunches it, it is mangled
by a tire’ s treads, hawk scoops it, turkey buzzard
pecks at it, no speech mitigates its pains,
even the cat fools with it, until, inedible,
it is kicked into the gutter. There she goes,
In our house we live with Arlene. My little sister has a plan.
She has what they call a beginner’ s mind. She sees everything
from an un-given-up perspective. I’ m frightened; I know
Arlene better than anyone; she knows me better. Esme says
if I’ m scared we can’ t win. But I am scared. Arlene drags me
over to the window where the black mould has made
a map of Australia. Australia gives me trouble breathing,
it’ s so far away. Arlene points it out and I get the feeling
in my chest, my whole life in there twisted up like a snake.
