then climbing into our van and driving
until the city sank into the dusky horizon.
There, someone said, pointing, it’s done it again.
And it was true, the impassive brick and steel
were gone. We cranked a U-turn and rumbled
home over the asphalt we’d just traveled
in hopes of catching our city in the breathless
unclothed moment before she had once again
reassembled herself, down to bits of rusted
hardware on the roadside and the actors
hired to loiter outside of bars.
But this time,
as we coasted slowly into our neighborhood,
past the impostors and hastily reconstructed
but nonetheless convincing details, we smiled
quietly at one another.
The van creaked to a stop under the tree
and we leaned the ladder into its thick crown
when suddenly something lifted
scraping into flight, croaking
like a rusted door—
as if the tree had cracked
open and coughed its dark
and broken
heart into the sky—
At Night
after Simic
at night you might not sense
the old hatreds of the city
which could be anywhere
rain-swept pavement turns
to shining lakes of light
or cars hiss coldly through
brushstroked intersections
the people are stacked away
into vertical burrows filled
with pill bottles and screens
insomniacs lie awake and share
the blank stare of their many
separate ceilings and children
are taught to shoot the deadbolt
upon first returning home
and yet the city wakes each day
and puts on its face and nods
as if it is not a family gathered
around the scrape of cutlery
at a steaming evening meal
pretending grandma never
used scissors on the mailman
and that father did not slip
his hands into his niece’s
blouse just this afternoon
Nowhere
Nothing will happen tonight
on an unknown rain-darkened street
at the door of the Hotel Nowhere.
When the cathedral bells fall silent
you will know it is the moment.
The password is any form of the verb
to be. The ritual will be enacted
by the most reverend Pastor Niemand
and will be attended by those that matter
less and less with each passing day.
You will know you are expected
once you conclusively determine
you have received no invitation.
At Half-Island
At Half-Island, slate-gray water breaks
over rock and plasters
weeds like hair against the granite
It has been this way for years
the sea always swelling
the tides in flux
the breathing of the world
And anyone who pauses to sit
and watch the sea do its work
will feel a deep-breathing swell
slowly fill
the channels of their body
When the tide left the orca
slack on the rock
the men went out in tall oyster-boots
to take its teeth
They had a fine-gauge blade
for the enamel
Each tooth worn and grooved
as wood
a single one would fill your palm
with its heft
like an old flint-knife
found in a cave
One look at the angled whale
said something
was lodged in its belly
and soon the men
were cursing and gawping
as they pulled
the better part
of a moose out
including one
fine-hoofed foreleg
folded neat
as a camp chair
and half a rack
of splintered antler
I could see it then:
The wild-eyed moose
jolted in its crossing
as the water
swelled fat and black
around his churning
then dragged quickly down
to be bolted
in torn hunks
where the broken
antler did its piercing work
and the orca’s dark
life drained slowly
into its own belly