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Three poems by Dara Wier Erasure Recovery Collaboration Operation Project My hand fits in your hand so we'll do it that way, okay? My head fits in your head so we'll drop it in carefully, Your nose goes in my nose, your ass in mine, my feet in yours, My eyes in yours, your vastly wider experience in years Easily covers up mine, my understanding of rivers and tides Quietly overcome yours, your mouth will cover my breasts, Albeit one at a time, and here is where we shift gears, Gears come in several different kinds, you know all about gears, In the meantime rain comes down the way film credits roll up, And a man never truly cares if he finds his son or not, And a father is never a big enough fit for a son, One tree covers up another, a shovel stores another one Inside, a battle won, a beheaded king, soldiers fallen in the snow, Disguised, neatly stacked up and down our hardware aisles, One horse you've ridden, another you've stolen, strictly slow Motion, a stream full of baskets full of raw babies, ribbons of clay, Ribbons of seaweed, your hair is on fire, your bone snap buttons, Air sawing our ribbons to shreds, we signal with shreds, we want to Shred with you some pages you've hidden your secrets in in in Between a snap clasp's snap on an alligator purse, whatever you do Don't open it, now you've opened it, now don't put your nose in it, But you've gone and done it and here we fall back into WWII, In the meantime a large man lets another man walk into him As if he were a dead man's closet and in it a few cowpokes stare Into a fire that's covering up all of the ladies they've lassoed, oh Let them, let each man and all of the women inside him, tell Pretty stories and cinch up their saddles, it's sadder than switched Identities, if ever stories of yours and mine fit inside, it's Almost like paper that's been folded and folded until finally it tears In all the right places, as in, did you see me see them see him, Or it's strange the way a verdict in an envelope stays a while in A pocket where my hand in yours stays a while to touch it. Half of me lived through the war while the other half waited at home, Most of the time I'm water letting myself be taken in by the moon. Most of the lies I've told have truth hidden inside them, turns out Truth is a shy black dog leaving a trail of its fur in our splinters. When one of your fingers moves on its own to touch a button or Turn off a switch, you'll think of me, I'm signaling you, I'm reading The Braille on your hotel room's door, I'm bringing you a silver tray Covered with linen, laden and lop-sided, a dagger, a comb, a bottle, A jigger, an envelope you never should open in which an envelope No one has opened contains secrets in secret whispers unopened, A cracked pitcher of most of the time lies open by your foot On the floor, you lower your head so your ear is all that there is. On the note in the book in the box in the closet in the forest in the Story in the tower in the tower in the clearing in a radiant eye. [first published in The Laurel Review] For a Dead Ant Preserved in the Middle of a Clear Straw It looked as though I were inhabiting the thought the way a loon inhabits a lake. Most of the time I could follow my head and the neck to which my head was attached moving steadily through the water’s thought. And then, now and then I’d be gone, pulled under the thought’s surface, erased with ease, decreased in size, no where to be found. That’s the kind of thought this thought was. No words were where this thought went. No logic to improve its consequences. No solace, no brightness, no next thought. But it most certainly was not a first thought, perhaps it was no thought at all. Though I inhabited that thought the way matter inhabits a black hole. When all of sudden, now and then, I’d see my head and my neck once again appear, they would be no where near where I’d last seen them before. It was no empty thought, this still lake on purpose, it filled to the brim every inch it served. I sensed I was doomed to feel as it were where it went where & whenever it chose. Were I to escape, land would be to me what land is to a loon. [first published in NOW CULTURE]If I Were Police Perfect They say there’s one on the other side of the great Falls. Let’s hear it for the 2000 year old seed. We had embryos to spare. It’s raining, the sun is shining, the devil’s on top of his horse. Perpetual silence was to be frowned upon. No one on the highway. Lustering proved to be a decent vocation. Fair enough. It appeared as if the person in question had embarked on some kind of prayer experiment which included the need to report how it was going. It was a week in which dozens of photographs depicted men in various stages of attempting to be unembarrassed while offering up various impersonations of piety. Baleful their pernicious souls. Because every time the thought begins to collect it is too horrific to complete. We stood under the cover of the Lincoln Monument watching a lightning storm. Do you mind if I ask you a personal question? It is not very difficult to uncover someone’s mother’s maiden name. Coaxing a seed to sprout. Someone questioned me, isn’t it always hot by a cookstove? Someone said, I just want your fingerprint for a keepsake. Because the current head of state chose to have himself photographed holding hands with a Saudi Arabian prince. Rain must fall from various heights at various times, no? It can’t all be falling from the same distance always, can it? To avoid the subject they’d talk about anything other than the subject uppermost on their minds. They’d talk about prairie dogs. Tonight we chose to talk about fog. The date palm is revered in the Koran & the Bible. Would that we were an unruly people. [first published in Volt] | ||||||||||||
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