Squares
falling night, rising tide. the car's eyes look like ghosts. moths cross and recross your chest. inside, a sign burns so bright you can't read the letters. shadows turn. a dark ship slips under the bridge. under your face is a river of streaming text, spelling what you won't tell. a moon in the sky and a moon in the canal. a moon in your mouth and a moon in your hand. a moon in the glint of your glasses and a moon in the glint of your eye.
climbing through chrysanthemum scent after the festival. stopping in a circle of trees. watching. insects. birds. leaves. the earth too is traveling. the street stretches backward like a cat. a bee nestles in a camellia. an arc of light strikes your face at a slant. we are stewards, maybe. singing, singing, sighing: the skylark, every string of wind, every creature that ever ran over grass or earth, every hand that ever grasped under sky.
cargo trains cross a dark bridge all night long. beneath the wood boards, a metal catwalk cracks. you're threading thoughts up into the bridgelights, listening to the clicking of the tracks. a leviathan of passing windows. a line of lights. a silhouette. night opens into the face of a stranger. the wheels roll and will not stop. you touch your reflection without seeing it. flying through a tunnel, you feel weightless.
gun shots open the night gardens. a pack of dogs attacks the sun. pidgeon wings rattle beneath a bridge. a shadow flicks by. (then its shadow.) a wind at the back of the head blows apart a camera. no one comes. no one goes. but a bird lands on a shaking branch. a chimera of stars speaks to your throat. souls shudder like mud at the foot of buildings and a mercury flood erupts.
your pale face in factory light / your sloping nose and skeptical look / beneath a flickering lamp, you stop / you stand next to its power box / you hum / you encourage me to do the same / the recoil in my skull resonates with your face / you step over an engine on the floor / you push through a door / you glimmer like a light suspended in space / you bend back into your body and disappear / you kick the stone that keeps open the door / there's a meteor, marking our first year / you miss it / go out back / step on glass / stop / watch lights ignite on the surface of the river / a painting on fire
resting the rifle across my legs on the side of the mountain, the day ends in complete dark | comes back again in fifteen minutes but with stars | turns purple, stays | I toss bullets into the air but they glide in circles over the field-terrain, hawks over the bricks and rectangular trees and snow | the mercury stops, slows the earth-machine, impedes rotation | I hold my barrel to the sky | light pools in the clip | clouds part | I see a blueprint | a circuit diagram in the hole | an LED or capacitor maybe | regardless, I carry you with me, a thirst that reverses backwards into a sea
the snow exits the sky like a bolt / my teeth come down hard on the bit / my bike carves paths in the lot / a glyph / you appear, surrounded by your class / you frown, then disappear through a door / they just stand there / cars illuminate like the shining edges of a shipwreck / a brigade of bicycles rests at attention / a plane is parked on the street / you look at me longer and longer until we ghost cornea, iris and macula / I arch into a handrail / a monorail begins to circle the high school / I see you in the window, waving goodbye / the doors collapse onto the snow and the canvas expands