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.

.