Articles

It is here, in the empty lot across from K-Mart, dusk falling at the cusp
of summer, that you realize you love her.

Throwing the coyote from my bedroom
window wakes me up. Its silhouette and
wild struggle at the screen had sent me
scrabbling at my bureau drawer for something:
a lamp, a camera, a hammer.

And then a final light step:
sputtery inch of a candle

between my fingers, I’ll slip
from a sliver of sun

into black woods—

I chewed your words with my morning
coffee and watched drivers peel out
of their driveways, while you crawled
“along the thoroughfare
of snakes.” Then I ate a peach and sweetbreads.

We brush our teeth with bottled water.
We shock the well with chlorine.
After a day we turn on all faucets
and for hours flush the tap.

The desk clerk’s a slow jerk. The crowd grows,
Wanting to send parcels to friends and kin.
The path of the people will not become overgrown—
Dear readers, puzzle over this Pushkin line.

Harder than I imagined, her
pregnant belly, the thick rind
of womb pliable yet taut. O
sweet shield of flesh.

Is this History, he said.
No, she said, it’s beyond
that door. The exit sign

also shows a way
in.

Gleaned from battlefield. See fade. See shutter as relic. Black cloth. Wisp. Tendril.
Lash. The stain that used to breathe.

Listen, cochlea: invite nightfall’s curtains
to weave their moths in your chambers.

The only drums you need beat on
inside the body’s cage, and even then will stray