Milkweed Editions

We’ll say unbelievable things
to each other in the early morning—

Twenty-three percent when placed under
intense pressure did in fact kick
the door in. Soldiers creep on the other side
of the turn. Every little thing
is destined for ease. Music, be still.

Keep the mannequin secrets
to yourself.

Spring seems
fluorescently golden.

You exist only in the delirious illusion of language.
–Robert Penn Warren,
“Brotherhood in Pain”

Dearest sun, your thick light

drags me down like a river current —
a big river, a small current.

Always I have wanted

to say how symmetrical
everything is — that is if you

stare at it long enough.

Poem Beginning with a Line from Tranströmer

Here I come, the invisible man, perhaps employed
by something only the dead
can articulate in their oily view of the past
and their eagerness for a future, a future
they have forgotten even exists.
Here I go, lost in a game of chess

What I desire in the sleepy
folds of repetition — only a crumb.
May I for a moment be nervous

breath beneath the sky’s slivered
blue?