The Alchemist of Marine Street
her head bowed like a beast
she takes steps backward,
losing her place, searching
for a pair of hands
In grey dark
the space crumbles and
airs discontentment in her
reproach still not moving
forward, shaking and unclear
Part light
her hands misplaced in
their stir, the whirl of displaced
objects in the last room, the next room
covering her hands
In sparks dark
her room, still
so unmoved no matter
the static in her head, she
wishes to raise her hands
To blinking lights
a wild beast in earnest
appealing in unleashed calls
against a static moor, hand-tricks
for movement,
In the dark
for a memory, to make
a past of stifling temperature,
to beckon in the end
of a standstill
Shadows light
to bring together what she
might, to hold a spoon
a bottle, blue glass
to her delight
So dark
but with rain, with wind
with no hands, with no
course, she brings in
with her grey mind
Lightening
pleading, find her her motion
and looking down, finds in all
the static it is her hands she wills
and cannot find,
Convoluted dark
now the sprawling epoch, an epoch
for losing things, compression
fires blue and unhot, cold burns
flying away and out of reach,
Flickering light
she thinks now out of sight
she might take to her bed
and fly, out of static, to see
if in the morning the sun will burning light.
§
Portrait – Caption
Artist Name: Portrait of America—sketch
Title: …of the girl in the bathroom at the Montaignes Apartments
having been chased there, folding a paper flower, a sculpture for love
—to love, a sculptural ode
Year:
Dimensions:
Medium:
§
Flight Plan
It was when she was looking for a horizon
That the room was black and then
Through the lighted jaw of a deep ocean
Fish came an ancient choice
Stretching the periphery
Of the ultimate, making the absolute
Unclear, yawning and trying her in her
Static squat, the position over
A black trash bag with beads
In it, their little holes
And penny roles, little moments some
Wrenches, some with switches, a broken
Thing and her dogged broken, stooped over it pulling, her in, her way in,
she was too
Far gone growing plastic webs
Between her fingers, settled down
In the middle of a room with the better
Door blowing cold air and a boy
Watching her maintain space
Over one of a number of mounds
And holes and boxes overdue
According to him, depending
On the distribution of those colorful items
That occupy little space, little pointy
Items he likes now the one who should
Care—she puzzles over
The outlines and reckless
Filling, a renegade muse or abandoned timid thing.
§
“Portrait – Caption” was previously published by Contraband Books.