Flinch
A new season
sweeps across the merchandise.
Paper products suggest harvest,
then fear of the dark.
Rows of palms
in stanchions
abstain,
having little stake
in matter.
They flap their fronds weakly
as we revolve.
*
Is it true we deserve
any blow
we fail to anticipate?
A shadow traveling down a wall
is a maternal hand
while a maternal hand
is lavender-suffusing
dusk
and dusk itself,
a great tissue
of lies,
suffused with blood.
*
Three things are placed
in safety
on a created plane:
twilight
and the stop-gap palms
bellwether palms
advance
with the transparent
cloud-scarves
of the nonexistent
fatalistic nomads
we half-dreamed
of being
En Route
We've re-authorized silence
as a bridge
between two notes --
so that we're always
"about to" or
"have just."
*
So that a magic school bus
bounces
through a haunted museum.
*
A small boy
stops his ears with both hands
then spreads his arms wide,
covers his eyes
then flings his hands apart
like a performer concluding a set.
"What does a cat say?"
his mother asks.
Up to Speed (Wesleyan Poetry)
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