Before I go to bed I wash my face
in the basin called Los Angeles County,
upside-down jellyfish, lotus, splash
of luminescence. Jupiter smudges
the telescope lens with a greasy thumb.
A satellite flares out over San Gabriel’s
mountains. I weigh 35lbs. on the moon.
When I wake up January has swung
shut like an argument neither of us cares
to carry on. After coffee the lawn offers
to read my palms with its tongues while I lean
back in the grass. My hands turn up and plunge
into the warm belly of a bear, the bathtub
of blue gin where the stars are starting to drown.
Andrew Nurkin’s poems have appeared in The Believer, North American Review, Georgia Review, Times Literary Supplement, The Massachusetts Review, and elsewhere. He lives in Durham, North Carolina, where he teaches public policy and directs the Hart Leadership Program at Duke University.
