Читать книгу Heliopause - Heather Christle - Страница 11

In seeking to resolve a conflict

between two parties

one can assume

each believes it is acting

in good faith

just as the hopeful

gravel waits for your rough step

▴

The only way to be truly alone

is for there to be nothing

not even myself

▴

In looping you rephrase after listening

to what the person has to say

what the person had to say

and having the new words affirmed

you wait and listen again

▴

Myself the eager magnet

for another to address

▴

Maybe I should think this a spiral

a loop that gets closer

a loop that will not close

▴

To make nothing

draw a circle

around what isn’t there

▴

I found a note I left in the corner

of a part of the poem we rarely used

If you ever feel trapped

it said

this is where to escape

▴

But legally I owe you nothing

I owe you at least that much

▴

Like being haunted by the spirit of the letter

▴

I remember my teacher’s story

of two teenagers who died in a blizzard

trying to stay warm

and the tailpipe

blocked with snow

so I always check

but it still happens

just yesterday

a man’s young son in what the paper

called one awful story

▴

The light switch has a beautiful feeling

when a person reaches out to make it change

and the warm quadrangles of sun

on the carpet are beautiful too

and red berries on the gray bush

and the mail as long as it lasts

and beauty is what beauty does to you

▴

Like trying to say a seagull

inscribing a circle

over what land

the day has thought

to provide

▴

to enter into agreement with yourself

to lie but only out of love

for the verblessness of buildings

They do not rise except once

and then nothing

how being is nothing

and if there were a word after

it would be a slow decay

▴

I will love across any distance

you think this has made to occur

▴

Nothing so ruthless as a life

▴

The day hangs low overhead

and soon enough the new grass will emerge

through the gravel

They have big plans to meet

in the middle

and in so doing

to phase all this out

▴

I go on

say enough and it will blur

off into sound

look up and see that night

has nearly settled in and darkness

and hope that if I look into it

long enough and keep my mouth

quiet

when I look down again I’ll find

a settled word

to which nothing

is attached

▴

Re: the day

someone said

what doesn’t kill you makes it longer

▴

It’s like footsteps toward you

that sound for all the world like

they forever move away

▴

I keep forgetting I’m the smoke

not the camera

Then I see my dark

joining sky to what’s below

▴

Like watching someone

from across a river

on such a clear day

that you can see her teeth

and at such

a distance

that you can’t hear the sound

so while you know

it must be screaming

it is possible

to imagine her faraway mouth

which you can see but not save

has opened—is open—to sing

▴

After the collapse and before

the dust settles

the darkness billows

and grows

like it’s describing

itself to the sky

this it says

this and much bigger

but the sky

in its sorrow

has had to turn away

▴

to expect praise for the beautiful apology

▴

to imagine something other than again

▴

Whether it is falling

from a ship

or plane or a building

the human body starts its drop

at roughly one rate

▴

The book said legally

thought the captain

of the slave ship Zong

to throw the people overboard

instead of letting them starve

would ensure compensation

for his loss

▴

And another has made

the words to decay

until what remains

is

loss loss

▴

When I go to the video

it is paused close to darkness

the place

where I had last stopped

and as I drag the cursor backward

so it can start again

I’m reversing

into morning what was night

▴

The three buildings in the corner

begin a hypotenuse

the dark clouds

—diligent—complete

▴

The subsection of sympathy cards

labeled words fail me

on which we pen

sorry for your loss

▴

The lights that come on last—

what were they resisting?

Or do they not notice

as sometimes can happen

while the hours carry in

the new-fallen dark

▴

They say we have fallen

a long way

to the cold

and planetary light

▴

They say the bomb is a flower

▴

A body falls much faster

than the night

▴

You will forgive me won’t you

for the lines