a Perimeter 3

1

"Ruder forms survive."
—Cormac McCarthy, Suttree

Cloth So Stretched

the garden ended, no cloud, no sea,
no sand, no second, the morning woke up
to war, he snickered, the sights inferior

to shared pain of the useless, a light on,
no dresses left, sewn to sheets to wrap up

immediately the wounds having been here
before, he remembered, the brutal egg
we're trying to hatch, that something flat

like Kansas was in, our hope, there was
requited, ever our escape sunk our many

choices at the end building the bridge
what would have been your burden

like objects in a mirror or well,
some structured piles, as reckless as my skin

2

A Mile of Earth

the knife caught some of what it cut
though he mentioned a child's embarrassment,

black feeling red, around the coffin the child
stepped up and threw a coin in, off he fell

will he come back like a cicada, like a Japanese
landscape miraculously lines end, perish, wild
stars, a slit pig; the horse is an ultimate reality,

he picked up again, the deer tries to survive as well

splitting wood, always shy like a diamond

the child mistook a coffin for a fountain
the end of a system designed to cause problems

for without real life the wish how novel

so the storm rose, sought the solitude of the ground
just feeling the seed, really just a theory

3

Letter Found on a Dog, Dead

swung, an axe married to wood as why is
poetic with the inchoate a dirty word

by brutal hangman a comedian tells
a joke providing pieces, not touching

a dead mouse pregnant from snow blood
has no voice so some run he has no voice

undone so some run who's in the forest too
the far corn says you're too tall broke in
shelter faster thieves kicking dog a dirt our
bodies made a bowl sick with heat a way

blood always leaves like a prisoner I tell secrets to
the window, on the left trees may never flaw
anything but sense there, may rise anyway scavenge

if the city is a crack in everything the day compared to

Note: The phrase "if the city is a crack in everything" is a misreading of the title of a multimedia project by the poet and translator Erica Mena.