Gillian Conoley

That sound Arvo Pärt does with one piano note stars split, fade, wander in cosmic expansion— First responder’s genesis and torch of metadatacrunch tumbling in a burnt and weedy churchyard equal parts Lethe and lithe— Grass, is it hollow, hallow to wake no longer among mortals? The woman her dress flowered from a blown ceiling silver-rosed— Flat plasm’s archangel coming clear out of sheetrock and screen shield and spear in hand let us do all the cooking if she will lead the pack, remember the route, read the waters— After the great fire we tread river’s late cream and flare. We woke in a city. Where who slew us into portions on a block out of earth gathered our limbs and we were allowed to continue unhunted. If “if” is the one word one is given with God to explain how one survived. Oh.  Ah.  Siren, white cockatoo meets deep blue. Fog.  Pour ammonia on coyote scat.

to wake to winter     in the coming out of the time of year when they release the masterpieces, but to be still in the other night. some drown in movies. some prefer the unfinished ungovernable recital, a mystical ecology where one dies in a camp, or rolls out with the dice on the sidewalk among boys with cardboard shields and plays dead in white crinoline. what if paradise was only lifting the veil to flirt. no one perfect, but perfection inserts us so, Pascal thinks a God in his pocket. what if paradise meant walking on the ground of our self estrangement, and the veil of our gaze an unsteady balm was not what we saw through but were,   twisting, untwisting— do you believe.            we were never strictly servants.

of July bagpipes                                   big mad Hitchcockian crows siren        families striding       hurrying want a whole lot of love           sings the Joplin mimic            white birch         willow swings          pollen the cars in shade way way down gonna give you my love staying in the house the crows outside are winning car door       a muffled crowd gasp      wheels at the top of the sky and waits the night sky's visuals called          "Untamed Retribution"        and "Rain Fire" an objective       sincerity         the war does not space itself two teenage             girls at the screen           with the sun in their eyes all day   time takes all the time         bright canisters in the culverts         girls read hills of it day-long trash truck heads down our street what a big engine        emergency brake distance between        telephone pole and queen palm's trunk smoke loops      from back of the house to front leaves no signet              in cloud                 sidewalk's scalding path 'neath county's ripe corn table globe's eggshell for romance    the girls layer their tears back into their skin many dawns     the boys waving bends air crosses clouds in hot nets increasing          the local tenor's uprightness fumes exhume the crowd stands open-mouthed heads lifted you you you you you and you send me smoke falls through each head of hair to each ear's size and limit love sound-chamber'd moon's far off place