Читать книгу By the Numbers - James Richardson - Страница 12

Metallurgy for Dummies

Faint bronze of the air,

a bell I can’t quite hear.

The sky they call gunmetal

over gunmetal reservoir,

the launch, aluminum,

cutting to the center,

waters bittered with the whisk

of aluminum propellers

(your gold drink stirred

with a gold forefinger).

*

Faint tinnitus,

where is it?

Air silver with a trillion

wireless calls,

stop-quick stop-quick

of sweep hands,

crickets and downed lines,

their sing of tension,

that out-of-earshot

too-bright CD sun,

the heads of presidents

sleet sleet in your jacket.

*

They were right,

those alchemists.

Anything—

tin-cold

eye of salamander,

a fly’s

green shield and styli

on your wrist,

distinctly six—

anything might—

mutterings in the wet,

two-packs-a-day

brass of sax, bright

tears pestled,

or your hair’s backlit

(same as the rain’s)

slender metals—

anything might flash out…

*

Surely one sip,

mused Midas,

gin and silver,

surely her fine engine tuned

to a dial tone,

surely her famous sway,

gone Gold, gone Double Platinum,

Rare Earth, gone Transuranic…

*

Anything slow,

slash-black and copper

monarch settling,

the shy key’s glint and turn,

sunny-cloudy

brass-and-tarnish fruit

paused at your lips, reflecting.

Any velocity,

water under the bridge

my leap

like dropped change rings on,

or seen from a train

chicory’s blue

extrusion to a wire of blur,

the train itself

(of thought)

on its track and track and track,

your soft, incredible metals.

*

…surely these vast reserves

(Midas, that treasurer, surmised)

I must address

with a safecracker’s

listening touch.

I’ll be the anti-thief

slipping certificates of silver,

the slim faux-platinum

yen of credit,

palms flat,

over and over into her skintight pockets.

*

Eyes, blank or deep,

a lake

gone bright dark bright

(on thin ice giving way—

one: roll up the window

two: when the car fills…)

the fatal-in-seconds

keen cold of a mirror,

the blank bright blank

that any word might,

any word might not.

*

No one my touch

(that treasurer says)

can bear and tell

(apparently did not touch himself).

*

Wine so cold it’s nails,

rings in the glass, poured,

your ring and its click

two-three, and click,

the bar awash

in digital and silver

whispers of the disc,

yes-no, yes

yes,

and This

Just In:

incredible metals

the shifting of your silks

imagines, unimagines,

the thought-blue

alloy of your lids,

the pistol

chill of your lips

my lips might freeze to.