L l o y d W a l l a c e —

seedlessness

i step out slow, the air’s upholstered

with particulates, some slantwise

smoke is reaching upward

toward the dwindling

illusion of the sky

these balled-up clouds

are little wads of happenstance

and so am i

it’s early summer

and soot is gerrymandering my lungs

this is is the third fire this month i think

i sure do love being alive

i love having my wings pinned

to the present

it feels so good to see the world

fizz like a rotten tooth

beneath me

the fire’s monologuing

down the hillside now

translating everything

into the blue language

of ash i think

time does this too

it conjugates

the people caught inside

what a fucking mess

i want to cut off both

my hands

and plant them in a briar patch

instead of writing poems

now smoke is bulging

mathematically

up the insides of my nose

i guess this is

the time that i’ve been given

day fell like fruit

into my hands

when i bit into it, it burned me

it wasn’t fruit

i had no hands

Duonnet

song

wind gossips

through the antlergrass

and puddles

in the palm

it stays

it is exact

it is not made

out of residuals

it is the center

of itself

this wholeness

simplifies

my body

i become

a mastered line

i walk

up to the bright sleeping

horizon

and lay myself

along it

i become one

of its bricks

now night

is foaming downward

toward us

and it is good

i feel so simple

this is the place where i will die

The Temperature of Dreams

It’s October. I am boiling an angel

in a vat of antler-bile. Men are outside shattering

their shadows with some hammers made

of artificial light. We’ll go out, later,

to the place where the gray sea calculates

its way up the violet sands. We’ll beat the water back

with whips, just like our dying fathers did.

We’ll watch, trembling like flowers,

as the clouds leave teeth marks on the sky.

.