The Brooklyn Rail

COVER LETTER

just say my subject is grief

it comes as a strike
leaves stricken
like an aircraft

afflicted
as Jupiter is
in opposition to Mars

these examples may lead to landing

on the floor
a puddle I try to reconstruct
from willed emotions

don’t bother says speech

it’s only worry the thing is done
I get along without
the provision of what is unnecessary

prayer all along
hoisting bodies to sky
as they were inhumed

I can keep this up

as long
as death
a book

unreadable from this distance

go try anyway
the rain heaves
something is not shut

the library downstairs only goes to S

DREAMSHIP HELMSMAN

Maria lulls me to slumberland, where I am

charged with sailing a ship with seventeen

thousand children aboard. My first job

after getting a captain’s license. I declined

to tell my employer about my narcolepsy.

Instead I decorate the helm’s spokes

with bells, so I rouse upon hearing

their rings and arrive in time for the wedding.

OF CLIMBING HEAVEN
AND GAZING ON THE EARTH

Across the waning crescent

as silver pennies drop,

a poppy speaks

to me. What does it say?

What those close to you cannot.

By being pruned one grows

and knows new bulbs: by being

seen one sheds more light

though sometimes disappears.

The moon obscured

like dry sea glass, frosted

by abrasive waves.

A few things stay untouched

by humans after breaking.

Which bottle do you belong to?

I busted mine with the hands

of unexamined life. This phase

makes my dreams lost

to love’s treasury. I sleep

under sheets of aluminum,

talking to lunar plants,

having forgotten myself,

unable to speak as I

once did, pallid in the face,

washed-out when blood

moved on. Wearied

by lunar tides, the sea

heaves. I writhe

through memory

like a jerk. It’s understandable

why people retire from

the world, reside on the moon,

I just don’t know why some

bring the world with them.