A l a n a S o l i n —

Total

A thread’s ends pulled together. Loss is not my loss, its pockets burning holes through rooms & their negatives: money pulled from nowhere, nowhere as regiment, as woman as nowhere, four adult children folded into two. Most death caused by the verb’s distillation from the object. The object stretched between two short ropes.

The genuine shutters, the ring struck into the sequence, the house run bright with water gone still. Tell me how reason & outcome deserve one another. Make me watch one pattern advance on both their shells.

The Winged Ants

Light is their north, we put out the plot.
Half-hidden suggests an uneven fold.
This allows straddle,
symmetry’s mark.
Behind each shape, its dead ringer blows.

Their aim strains a gap
in the weft of their story.
Smuggled wit. Boding flight.
Our house heaven-lit. Battle-tight.
This time I want to be right.

Oracle Junction

Horizon is a need
disguised as a place.

At destructive velocity
the world’s slowest train.

Ductile under
God’s powdered hands,

God in coordinates.
The miracle chain.

Out of the steppe I
accept yeses,

turn over the blinking wheel
to star cud & silver,

thumb the car key, the calfskin,
& heaven’s mottled lock.

.