C a s s i e V o g e l —
Unreal City
comes from
a line of children without end,
our faces pushed blue out from the other woman
into darkness
the air fades to stillness
death to her voice
in an instance one knot loosened
the earth turns, with nothing to look forward to,
lice, scum, toiletries, 2003 television soldiers at
periphery,
bleeding gums, flossed to death with what
tangle of pubic hair in the bathtub emptied
a naked body floats in the river
out the window boys in the patch of dirt
sang alcoholic to the noon
sang shot my woman to the moon
smoking in the night time flies that fill up the
field between our homes
well the mist of yesterday crept up in heather
the mist of yes, my daughter, in ashes
in a glass cup, wasp legs in resin,
was a song we sang, women arrive
in bridal school, combing ash through the
entrance gate, entering the dusk before
the disc plays a film with airplanes
in a starless night, angel wings flapping
then limp and powdered, bent to
touch that veil which is invisible
we scrape the darkness with a pin
we scrape the darkness with a pin
beds await the flush of hands
in a while the stomach bloats,
blossoms of lice multiply lilies of the furnace
stripped of nothing else, the sea, the sea emptied basin of her face and gentle
wash
pressed against me
Legends
Ever comes the waitress voice
Crown blush lip of sky-blue
Aches my near girl from the suitcase
In the car and nothing good
Bender skin or night potion flowers
My sign to ball out early and phone
Bank a solipsistic widow
Gaunt memes are fashion caskets
Why the alarm bell keeps going
Can you hear them dead inside
The car and nothing
Soccer goalie’s legs caught on
Neurotic pollination
Ash star blanket field
Asbestos ballerinas
Smashed cup in the driveway
Divorced father of three
Best win then
Today the car and nothing
Thumbs off blue pollen
Possibilities for Living
Walking by a torn place, to her
I utter, that is the place I do not go.
They say to the place I do not go,
hello, Bernice, have you seen anyone
Living damaged, lately?
I said to the man on the bicycle,
I do not, I do not go there, he
Asked me why.
I beg him, I do not go there, now
Let me be. The streets are
wet with blue-dew silver, I empty
My can.
That is the place I do not go.
Children scamper round the bend,
A pond lit simp by fire a wish
A wake across my room.
That is the place to which I do not go.
Why then, my child asks, must we walk
this path, this bridge across the pond,
and not another? I say,
This is the place I go today.
And all the leaves will follow God
while I am here to stay,
ushering their principal constituents into
my den for a momentous return.
I skim the calm tomb, calamity,
in foment with the sun.
.