Poetry

Tonight I’m gonna party like it’s 1561.
I’m smiling right out of my face;

whether it’s the sunset or the hummingbirds,
I can’t be sure. I’m exhausted by springtime

Alter- / inner-ego,

vulnerable
to everything outside

and everything within.

Beneath the boat, metal
artifacts. Remnants of Deliverance, the SS
Mont-Blanc’s collision. Wartime
vessels, twisted & tacked
under sediment, the sea floor.

The sea. Sky. Glittering, two sequined
pilgrims. A tear in my sleeve grows, pale skin
disfigured by light, by shadow. Long nights

on water, my breaths I hold like fumes

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.