SOMETHING VAGUE AND INCORPOREAL INSINUATES ITSELF INTO THE AFTERNOON

Clouds half-light
the sidewalk, gossamer and dress.
The trees shake their fingertips
in the blousy afternoon.
The horizon’s slipknot
                         swallows the street.

Women pass arm in arm,
unrequited gazes. Areola clouds.
The sparrows twitter and punctuate.
Today’s desire winnows me down.

I want to unbutton the sky.

          *      *       *

There’s a word
for the lift and take off,
the vanguard of wings, antiphonal and one.
There’s a word for that spark, the disappearance,
the flight.
                  I haven’t learned it
so I sit
          as the shadow
covers this bench and that fountain.

– Mark Rosenberg

We’re Doing Hearing Tests

Since no one understands me.
Since I flew in on a ribbon,
my arms are harmed wings. I really was
surfing. So I said to my endless love,

               deer are in our headlights.

You look like your spirit animal.
You gather kindling;
I drag a log as a kill
and I cut it for hours.

When you hear the beep, speak unto my coma,
               darling, I’m still here for you,
and then when I’m dead
you can come to my funeral.

– Seth Landman

Reportage

The seaweed giggles on the Atlantic Coast. Jimmy and I document this phenomenon for we are documenters, our documenting vehicle crammed with files. During the bimonthly reposition Jimmy holds the canary cages out the window and I drive slow. The canaries do not seem to mind. They are less anxious than I and possess fewer pencils. Jimmy would never leave them behind. I would, and would regret it, and would construct poor replicas from recyclable graphs. Recyclable graphs do not sing in the audible spectrum nor eat peanuts. If I was Jimmy I would hate me 22 percent of the time. I document these self-castigations on the Atlantic Coast. Jimmy is a hard worker with strong arms. In South Carolina a woman sawed a house in half and what a problem for the census-takers. My redeeming quality is my love for new categorization. Jimmy says my insistence upon unnecessarily long words maddens him. When Jimmy says “maddens,” he means he will retreat with the canaries to compose new songs of the Atlantic Coast and will return in two hours. My dictionary of Jimmy is in the trunk. It is the most meticulous love poem. The women are strong in Alabama. In Gulf Shores they wear skirts of kudzu but are never consumed. Our documenting vehicle rides low but we have yet to experience a flat. Then again, I define “flats” as Roadside Variables and view them as opportunities to investigate cultural proclivities toward unprompted community assistance. The people of Florida are not my heroes but they are kind and likely to carry tire jacks. Jimmy says they are called “Floridians.” This seems strange. He says there are supposed to be more songbirds in Florida but the Atlantic Coast has its own new silence. I faithfully transcribe the whimsical myths of condominiums and alligators but even I in my credulity sense something of a stretch.

–Amy Dickinson

Tour for the Lepidopterist in August

Might I escort you beyond Brownsville, Mr. Nabokov? Here, the snout species clogs the grilles of eighteen-wheelers. Let’s wade through the carcasses of butterflies, the stalled Peterbilts. Let’s catalogue our gorgeous interstate catastrophe. Aren’t we cute and unsure of ourselves beyond Brownsville.

One more go-round for the plow

There is not a soul even around
to officiate this mess. I can’t even count
up all the stuff I’m in love with,
baby, I’m so up with my God lately.
Sometimes I feel my farm is too far
North. No. Listen,
everything’s ending, everyone feels it.
If there’s a realization to wait for,
let’s pretend it’s past; we’re already
in the car, I had coffee, don’t worry,
we’re going to the chapel of love.

– Seth Landman

Woods Thick

Unto the watering cans and sagging bags of grain left afterwards what? I bestow one pale horse my executioner, the ragged wake of perfunctory symbols, the Sisyphean task of decoding all little catastrophes, these quaking accidentals our bloody rhexis made into an origami swan, shifting deity creaking at the seams, its membrane sallow its stature still remarkable—towering like Godzilla and destruction in its wake to pit us into our own happenstance explosions, position us against our own joyful tincture.

Empty

 

            The bottle of wine rolled up the passenger seat, and Duncan put his hand out to keep it from dropping to the mat.  The label wasn’t well glued; it crackled under his palm like a dry leaf.  He rubbed the cold bumps of glass at the bottle’s base with his thumb, his eyes never leaving the white line at the side of the road.  He preferred to steer by that line at night, rather than the yellow one.  He saw things he might have missed otherwise – deer preparing to cross, joggers, memorial sites for people who’d been in accidents.

Yellow Ribbons

            He turns up the radio and starts dancing in the driver’s seat, bobbing his shaved head from side to side.  He has that goofy smile on his face that she used to think was so adorable, but she is in no mood to laugh with him today so she turns her face to the window. They woke up in Denver and should be in Ft. Riley, Kansas in 7 hours.  She isn’t looking forward to another day on the road with him pretending that everything is just fine. Had he forgotten what he said to her just a few days ago?  Could he not imagine what his accusations meant to her?

Another Thing About Your Wife

She had the most beautiful shadow I’d ever seen.
After you disappeared the lake froze over
and I rented her a place out in the middle of it.
We made love for wet and languid hours,
me and her shadow I mean, but your wife became suspicious.
She’d sit her shadow down flat
and say, “I guess I’m not good enough for you anymore either.”
All that shadow ever wanted was a moment in the light
but she kept getting in the way. After a while
I pretended I was just licking germs off the wall,
as a sort of peace offering, and she seemed okay with that.
It wasn’t her igloo anyway.
Nor was it the best place to host burning nuns
but every Wednesday, there they were, sipping tea
and complaining of the vicar’s unsolicited caressing
of their wimples. They suggested she move off the lake
and build a home less susceptible to phase transitions
but you know how stubborn she can be
when she can’t make up her mind.
I try not to judge her too harshly. This was before
we learned that you were not dead
but merely in New Jersey
building bridges between bridges and waiting
to hear which of your loved ones had died without telling you.
She waited and waited but there were always more bridges.
Our shadows untethered themselves and ran off together
into daylight. Now she and I just sit around getting older,
yawning at sunsets and telling stories
about you so we don’t forget,
though the more we remember you, the less sure we are
that you were ever here. For a while I worried I had simply invented you
so I could explain all this to someone.
Let me know your opinion on that.
She was not just mourning for the sake of mourning.
Sometimes I wake up and she is staring at me
like she just finished asking me something essential
and everything depends on my response
but I always guess wrong
and she crawls off into the corner. In the morning
we take turns forgiving each other
until finally we are so disgusted with ourselves
that we break down in joy.
We could go on like this forever.
Sister Celsius says the ice will melt soon.
Sister Integer says soon compared to what.

– Boomer Pinches

The Bird Boy

Warren Detention Center, 245 East Warren Road, Warren CT 02387
July 18th, 2003
Transcript of interview with Franklin Robert Pigeon
Officers on duty: Samuel J. Parker, Captain
                                 William A. Ericson, Lieutenant

FP: Hey mister, when they gonna let me go home?

SP: We just need you to answer some questions. State your name for the record.

FP: You know my name’s Frankie Pigeon, that other guy wrote it down in those papers. And I gotta get home soon. Why do I gotta be here? I ain’t never hurt anybody, except for when I have to put a bird down. And then there was this one time, when I was a kid, but it was a mistake, really. You want I should tell that story?