The Brooklyn Rail

EXIT MUSIC

Then our coin machines
began to translate earth.
As if all our neighbors
unplugged at once.
A gangrene tonality.
Time-lapsed erosion
or benzos blessed
with a mouthpiece.
The murmur chorus
of theater surgeons
moments before they
abandon their task.

Someone new thought
to ask about the past.

Then our coin machines
began to translate
earth before earth.
Was it memory?
The photovoltaic
vocals seemed to
suggest yes. As if
magma were the same
as thunder mothering
fields after a drought.
Ecstatic whispers, slow
formed crystals, the long
constitutional shout.

I am telling you what I
heard them say because
I stopped here to listen.

Get up. Take your coat.
This is hope. This is hope.
This is hope. This is hope.

NOT US NOW (Excerpts)

At dawn by the bog
the rawboned cluster
of tamaracks alone with
B* await the mist. Mist,
will it finally speak of.
Course not. Mist is
a harbor. For branches
and shrubs and B* silent
until mist lifts. Deletes it-
self. B* sinks foot after
foot across the wetland.
It’s cold today. Sky
mute gold brown.
Heavy-footing around
the marsh hardens
the hard work of
the heart. Did the mist
speak in some non-
parametric past. Or was
there else to count on.

+
+
+ bog

All those days of where
is P*and P’ finally wrote
the deadmate song. Only
then did P’ see P*’s face.
Percolating in the dark.
Contour in the eggplant-
black bruise in the dark sash
strung below the moon.
Above the frozen plain.
P’ lies down. Sings deadmate
when the spring comes I
song to the face of P*
reaching out as if to grasp
the dark sash. Sing reach.
Sing reach to bring
the face in the dark sash.
Freeze with the plain.

+
+
+ plain

Just Ŝ and S* for weeks
now. Met only once before
the savannah burned. In
passing at the colloquium.
Now S* agreed to be student
again. Teach me your field.
Tell where the gas lay.
How they found it. Their
Gaussian processes.
Their priors. I’m not really
your student. Ŝ the first
night of the storm. Paler
than ever. Where have
the garments gone. Tell
the favorite story? Tell
the burn story of the pine
barrens. Describe then
prescribe. The favorite
burn story. How the pine
barons before they were
barren billowed in a voice
so full so federal only they
could bare it. Ŝ first night.
The storm store story?
Be student again teacher.
Your field. With the gas.
Lie down. I never was.

+
+
+ savannah