I walk through your dreams and invent the future. Sure,

I sink the boat of love, but that comes later. And yes, I swallow

glass, but that comes later.

And the part where I push you

flush against the wall and every part of your body rubs against the bricks,

shut up

I'm getting to it.

Richard Siken

Explaining why, in two-ton manifesti, thinkers sally forth
with testaments and pipe bombs. Heaven help us:

spare us all your meaningful designs. Shine down or
shower forth, but (for the earthling's sake) ignore
all prayers followed by against, or for.

     

Heather McHugh, From the Towers

And your hands, for example,

like a warm liquid on my face

don’t evaporate as you take them away.

Nor are our betrayals silent,

although we listen only in passing.

We’re learning how to walk unlit streets,

to see threats instead of trees,

the right answer to a teenager

opening his knife. The answer is yes.

Always we couldn’t do otherwise.

Michael Ryan, "Prothalamion"

The woman I love is greedy,
but she refuses greed.
She walks so straightly.
When I ask her what she wants,
she says, "A yellow bicycle."

Robert Hass

If you're in Savannah today, you know what I know.
It's oatmeal weather: dark as midnight, cold, and incessantly rainy.

Knuckles of the rain

on the roof,

chuckles into the drain-

pipe, spatters on

the leaves that litter

the grass. Melancholy

morning, the tide full

in the bay, an overflowing

bowl. At least, no wind,

no roughness in the sky,

its gray face bedraggled

by its tears.
May Swenson, October

Many names, most given up as routinely
As the secrets of friends. If you're a cup
Will my lips profane your own? If a comb
Will I feel your teeth against my neck?
If a wall I will be darker than your shadow.
And if a door I will unlatch you, letting in
All the little foxes from the vineyard.

Averill Curdy, The God of Inattention

today was: staying in bed, cigarettes, and arthur miller. but damn it was beautiful weather, so glad i got these windows.

How will it be

to lie in the sky

without roof or door

and wind for an eye

With cloud for shift

how will I hide?
Mary Swenson, Question

A man sees a tiny couple in the distance, and thinks they
might be his mother and father.
But when he gets to them they’re still little.
You’re still little, he says, don’t you remember?
Who said you were supposed to be here? says the little
husband. You’re supposed to be in your own distance; you’re
still in your own foreground, you spendthrift.
No no, says the man, you’re to blame.
No no, says the little man, you’re out of proportion. When
you go into the distance you’re supposed to get smaller. You
mustn’t think that we can shrink and sell all the time to suit everybody coming out of the distance.
But you have it wrong, cries the man, we’re the same size, it is you who are refusing to be optically correct…

Russell Edson, The Optical Prodigal

having neither planes nor curves nor angles,

are composed of a continuous satiny white membrane

like the flesh of some interior organ of the moon.

It is a living surface, almost wet.

Lucency breathes in and out.

Rainbows shudder across it.

And around the walls of the room a voice goes whispering,

Be very careful. Be very careful.

My bed in the boughs, my blanket the clouds.

And this bed above the world, it's so full, just myself and my imaginary bedfellows who soak in secrets and keep me warm.

i live in a tree house.

one thing has nothing to do with the other,

but both are still true.