Dispatch
The end of day
bays in the blood.
It has caught
a great lack
and will not rest
until I close
the distance.
* * * * *
Reflexive
The teacher told me
my heart was roughly
the size of my fist
and I saw my hand
clench around
the new knowledge
as if with an infant
instinct again,
simian vestige,
palm and fingers
gripping phantom
fur midair
between two trees.
It’s natural the visible
endure as measure
of the hidden,
but to this day
it sways in me
not only sense
of scale but purpose,
for what is the heart
if not called from
the start to close
over, to cling to,
to hang on, to hold
itself to this day,
this day, this day,
this day, this day,
this day, this day,
this day, this day
* * * * *
Monumental Life Building
The name, a gauntlet thrown down Chase and Charles
Streets, rendering each pedestrian just that — ordinary,
transient, wondering what veined stone sourced
from what dark quarry, what winch and hoist and
labor, might suffice to build a monumental life?
And what so vast that hasn’t taken its tithe or more,
tip of a worker’s finger or more, capillary-christened?
Up the road, a now-bare plinth shrugs perpetual
disavowal of past purpose where — look! — my daughter
(smallest in her class) pointed one afternoon as
a young man hopped atop it to juggle in its statue’s
absence. I can still feel her other hand in mine and
somehow, too, the quick palm-thud and twitch aloft
of his brief constellation.
* * * * *
saw, circular
we serve
the swerve that one
good turn
deserves. another
riven swivel,
pivot fodder.
the whole flock
reverses charges,
calls collective.
turn me
on to turn me
one again.
how in
our moment’s um,
now buckles,
bones up on
the autopsy-turvy
table, espies
and pries the gum
stuck under
to make a meal
of then recoil,
anguine, sanguine,
disavow each
season’s treason
as it reveals
the wheel.