Panic
\n<\/strong>
\nNever-to-be-caught, Now,
\nfalter me. The reined-in horse
\nneighing, wide-eyed, made
\nto be still,
\nnot happy yet closer, Now,
\nto you\u2014to being alive.<\/p>\n

Dear Anger,
\n<\/strong>
\nget me past the girls\u2019 gate
\nbeyond all that God-sap,
\nhoney of sex flowing, heavy in their veins.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u02dc
\nI\u2019m moving beyond all I adored.
\nCome with Brutal Awareness.
\nHer value until now
\nI never understood.<\/p>\n

<\/em>The Cerebellum Singing Its Cosmic Scales
\n<\/strong>
\nI am still a sucker for the sky.
\nFor evening\u2019s azure neglig\u00e9e.
\nThe pale-green canopy of spring\u2014
\nbullet-ridden or lacy\u2014
\ntake your pick\u2014
\nthrough which the dead
\ncome and go at whim.
\nFeel them watch, brush past?
\nNo amount of liquid tongue
\ncan cling or clasp.
\nYet these lines stack themselves
\none by one, from the coccyx
\nof darkest matter to the spinal
\ncord of a thought.<\/p>\n

For Vermeer and His \u201cSleeping Girl\u201d
\n<\/strong>
\nThe room is drowsy with darkness.
\nThings are in disarray
\nbut the girl sleeps on, sitting up:<\/p>\n

Her cheeks flushed and soft
\nas the fruit in the bowl before her.<\/p>\n

Her widow\u2019s peak cutting a heart
\nin her brow.<\/p>\n

Her sturdy body beginning
\nto contain us the way the jug
\nin front of her has contained wine.<\/p>\n

And the door to this room
\nalways part way open.<\/p>\n

So we go on wanting
\nwhat cannot be had:<\/p>\n

To behold what her closed eyes see
\nwithout shuddering her awake.<\/p>\n

The New Room
\n<\/strong>
\nWhen I see the nervelike
\nbeginnings of ginkgoes,
\nsomething unknown in me sets off
\nup a tributary, entertains
\nleaving the ones I love.<\/p>\n

I dream time after time of a new room
\non the apartment, an undiscovered wing
\nI might grow into, huge
\nand full of light, with a view of trees
\nand sky. It saddens me to awaken.<\/p>\n

It is death that grows, life that falls apart.
\nI live in a dark four and a half room walk-up.
\nMy sister was a half-sister.
\nI hardly feel a pang now when I think of her.<\/p>\n

My secret is the trees.
\nThey let me go on when it was she
\nwhose bare feet I had climbed upon,
\nshe who smelled of autumn
\nand had autumn\u2019s apricot hair.<\/p>\n

I have stood at her grave
\na few long minutes,
\nfelt great agitation in the air.
\nThough the elms above me remained peaceful
\nand the Ompompanoosac still pleased me
\nwith its vowel-full name,
\nneither could soothe
\nthe Susan<\/em> in stone.<\/p>\n

The Tightrope Walker Whose Wire Is Herself
\n<\/strong>
\nIn Rodin\u2019s sculpture of Iris
\nshe is compacted into the smallest
\nspace imaginable then opened from the center
\nlike a sectioned fruit,
\nlegs bent and parted, one knee northeast,
\none knee west,
\nthe pressed-open flower of her sex
\nreversing the tucked-in pelvis at prayer.<\/p>\n

My iris has some of the hues of bruises.
\nIts petals dwell in the dangerous
\nbands of the spectrum I love,
\nwhere brightness fails and red orange
\nyellow green step down into blue indigo violet.<\/p>\n

auGUST AUgust
\n<\/strong>
\nNothing shone.
\nEven the trees limped
\nunder such foliage.<\/p>\n

And the implements
\n\u2014rusty and large\u2014
\nin the machine shops<\/p>\n

whizzing past had no luster.
\nWords missing letters
\noffended the eye,<\/p>\n

causing the proofreader\u2019s
\nbrain to struggle\u2014
\nwhat took so long<\/p>\n

in forming
\nwhy take it
\napart?<\/p>\n

Then the solitary
\nsunflower
\nshowed its face<\/p>\n

amid the densation
\nof green<\/p>\n

\u2014Ah, sunflower,
\n\u00a0you were my . . .\u00a0 weary,
\n\u00a0alack\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>clack\u00a0 clack clack
\nek-
\nko<\/p>\n

of the woman on the train\u2019s wondering
\nhow to remember
\nanymore
\nwhat you are.<\/p>\n

Cambium Girl
\n<\/strong>
\nGirl, who earlier
\ndreamed of ringlets
\nfat, brown slinkies down her back
\nand of the sophistication of wearing
\nslingback shoes,<\/p>\n

Now has become this slim fish of a person
\ntesting herself out
\nstill too easily swallowed
\nby the deeps
\nor a field of tall reeds.<\/p>\n

Her father called her
\nLong Drink of Water,
\nthis frail changeling
\nto be returned to
\nfor however many years
\nthere are to come.<\/p>\n

She was modeled on the tree,
\nwhose writings are also internal:
\ntracings of
\na single open vowel
\nO o
\n<\/em>held, drawn,
\nechoed within itself<\/p>\n

to mark time and protect
\nthe living part of the tree:
\ncambium,<\/p>\n

Where cells divide
\nand exchange themselves
\nfor something tougher,
\nmore useful:
\nxylem or phloem\u2014
\nthough it is here:
\nplace of utmost passage<\/p>\n

without which neither
\nshe nor the tree
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 could survive.<\/p>\n

\n<\/em>Hummingbird Haiku
\n<\/strong>
\nRuby throat, come near.
\nFeed. Be punctilious\u2014
\nStitch-stitching\u2014sans thread.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Panic Never-to-be-caught, Now, falter me. The reined-in horse neighing, wide-eyed, made to be still, not happy yet closer, Now, to you\u2014to being alive. Dear Anger, get me past the girls\u2019 gate beyond all that God-sap, honey of sex flowing, heavy in their veins. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u02dc I\u2019m moving beyond all I adored. Come with Brutal Awareness. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1934"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2156,"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1934\/revisions\/2156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}