Ladies and gentlemen sidestep
slick sidewalks,
glance sideways
at old lovers in puddles
because it is easier that way.
Ladies and gentlemen, swallow
the chalky moon,
swallow it whole
with your eye
like an aspirin.
Wax poetic
about its inconstancy
but it never turns
a new cheek or a blind eye.
It always swells
with love, or pride, or anger,
with whatever light
finds it.
-after an exhibit of Ellsworth Kelly prints at MMoCA
Some forms are pristine
and bounded, to keep
the color in the lines, the cattle
in the pasture, so to speak.
In the pasture stand wayward cattle and
a weathered barn with a wide
corrugated roof, and spaces
the sunlight doesn’t fill, pock-marks
in the tin. But, for the sake of art
and argument, let’s erase the grass
and the cattle from the canvas. Let’s
whitewash the November trees.
And clear the slate sky, too,
with its little flock of sheep. Yes,
let’s lead them home. Let’s
disassemble the barn, plank
by rustic plank.
But leave us this roof afloat in a wash of white,
this bent rectangle. If life and love were that simple,
we would not be distracted by shadows.
A triangle would be a Triangle,
not just three angled sides leaning against each other. love
would be Love. cows would be Cows,
not just bovine shadows cast against a cave wall.
But here we are, tethered
to our cave, cold but not alone.
Like calves crated from birth,
we don’t crave clover fields
when our time comes.
When our time comes, we only see
shadows on the ground and reflections
in the water at first. Next we notice
the stars and moon by night. Eventually
we see the sun in its proper place.
We spoon colored paper pulp, yolk yellow,
onto wet sheets of unpigmented paper.
We dry it and run it through the printing press,
the color bleeding outside crisp lines.
And each impression defers to chance,
to time, like the weathered barn
with the rectangled roof. We name this form
“Yellow Curve” and hang it
from the cave’s sunless walls.
Shall we walk together through the drizzle
of a stubborn winter’s day
when the streets are slick as tadpoles
and the sky is elephant-gray?
Shall we stop beneath this canopy
to surround ourselves with sounds
of water that reached the heavens
before tumbling back to ground?
If you must know,
I am in love still
instill love
in you, my love,
must I still?
I am the plover’s uneven wingbeat
over the open moors
still am I with love?
If you must know, with you
I am in still love,
I still am with love
Love, am I still with you?
I am the hollow moon that waits
in a dark bed for you.
If I am with you still, love,
if still with you I am
you must know love
I am the yellow leaf, cupped and spinning,
on the silver slip of stream
still, love,
I am with you, I am. Must I know you?
Still if I love, I must
be the ghost of your breath,
the reach of your ribs
the steps of your spine
so in love am I.
He grew up lacking things
some things that is
like a father
and a spare dime.
He grew up spending his last dime
at garage sales–
t-shirts paperbacks
and vinyl records, all in stacks
a dime a dozen.
He grew up stacking dime novels
beside his bed, making
aisles of them,
piles of them,
walls of them
He lined the window sills
with all of them
until they blocked the light.
He grew up listening to albums
from another time
Beatles, Leonard Cohen,
Robert Johnson, Patsy Cline.
Put another dime in the jukebox.
He grew up watching vinyl spin
listening again and again
until he liked it
until he heard it
over the taunts of schoolboys
Where’s your daddy? Serving time
for holding up the Five-and-Dime?
He grew up collecting
dime-a-dozen things, worthless
things that made him feel he was worth a dime
things that made him feel.
evelynwestbrook 