Pipes
That Race, A First Vision
The night of the ice storm
the batteries died inside the table
clock, malingered time after cardinals
and crows picked away the jags
of pumpkin that pocked the rooftops.
He remembers a first vision,
ruptured berries over a washtub, tiny blood,
certain the mirror darkened
for he’d watched a broken grackle die
and later buried, he alone
amid brothers. Whenever he washes
the wineglasses by hand, he knows the ice
will dream over the trees, and she
will wake when wooden shards balance
above the horses’ spines.
A glass splinters in his clutch, cut
slipping into the sink and the pipes
now pulse. The horses neck the trunks,
to ground, the thaw, and stir voice
from the ice. She rises from the sheets, brings
water to her lips a waking-drink,
shirks the cold blood
and blinks like a wing.
A Six Month Spring
Trimming the rare and antlered
cactus he does not trouble over sap,
does not trouble over piercings
into delicate veins.
The corners of the house
teach him that gross specificity is redundant.
Thin jags of glass appear
daily in the carpet like tumorous crystals,
his wounds cool under the sear of vodka and moon.
A prick of needles growing from his skin
like fur he decides is a sign to curl
(and will you not burn?) into a corner
of the ceiling, to spell sap backwards
into the clinging soot
because it is law to forget all names.
Copyright © 2004 Shannon Jonas