Holiday Photo
We gather kitchen after dinners We conveyor plates, utensils
We shine knives when men watch speak with one mouth
dream of teeth We dream in threes
spell it out perspire
bend silk We say thank you, no thank you
freckle at wrist butter crust
We handwrite recipe We like that
We don’t We bow and arrow
eucharist We disagree
drive long miles We enfeeble
We chew iron We snake
are cold make weather
We monetize whittle meat
wring hair note to self
grow up We want horses
We torch songs We remarry
world travel cover the waterfront
remember your birthday We hate forgetting
We life dream We firearm
We darn holes paint blue
We labor We tell it again
collect arrowheads frustrate the air
We alphabetize We bury
We pit fruits We rouge enamel
We birdsong like ugly
call on Sundays We tend to
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Untitled
After Mary Ruefle’s “Sweet Morning”
A belated witness
tells what they saw, what they didn’t—
see the verses all lined up
and shot, out back, one by one;
how they fell into the lake which
was there for claiming them.
And the dog barking
white cranes scattering.
Their paper bodies like petals
across the rippling surface.
They saw stars hanging limp,
abettor. How psalms
induce water to move.
The ink bled
in so much black,
couldn’t see the violent
blue of a patriarch
his piano lessons, even
teeth grind at night.
Then: a long cool peace, like that
of sheep or flora.
And how could they explain this
by way of familial root
way of uneasy center
way of prodigal ends and debuts.
By way of search party in the changing color,
six arms of one mourning body
and their hands plunged in the ink.
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