Sina Queyras

After Alfred Noyes unmount Umber tail mount, Seven bubbles, sad Balk of night, Red tulip lunges. Incandescent felt tips, Small ochre waves In the nape Of greening brick. Simile-clad branches Vascular, the leather Cusp of April Or glass leaves: Nest of pages In a sweep. woof Coil helix rain. Congregation gully up. Cold steel compress Her rosy ways. Rattle a cocoon, Three twins falling Combat lost nap Wool in Woolf. Brittle sheep tossed, Biotic petrol lagoon: Morning sex lyric Ever after umber: Where the knobby Moose pins glisten. perroquet Hooked rug or Gursky’s 99 cent. By the thousand Field, bunch, vase, Swooped pink neckline Tailored as crinoline Fringed, parrot, Rembrandt Ovoid domesticated bowl. Swivel in red Armless white linen, Visualization of unnatural Interactive selection bias: What the daffodil Could not accomplish. swivel Owls curtain his Future, a violent Wave rumbling beneath The brown floorboards. I’m a bad Mother, impatient, tiny- Fisted body crumpled Against my chest, Aquatic gulps of Air, the owls, Prickling our chests. The bad finger Points back, points At the pointer. chisel After Steve McCaffery’s “Tyrolean Night” Suddenness is other, A numerical chill Sphere machine, a Tall Bashō bathes. Pond jumps in To frog, insults Are all sex, Is mute sagas, Is daylight upended, Drunken, you sang The totem up: The wind did What shrewd words So rarely do.

If you can’t feel love in life you won’t feel it in death, nor Will you feel the tulip’s skin, nor the soft gravel Of childhood under cheek. You will have writhed Across the page for a hard couplet, a firm rhyme, ass High as any downward dog, and cutlass arms Lashing any mother who tries to pass: Let’s be frank About the cost of spurs, mothers like peonies Whirling in storm drains, families sunk before Reaching open water. The empty boudoir Will haunt, but not how you imagine it will. Nothing, not even death frees mothers From the cutting board, the balloons, their Lack of resistance, thoughts, he said, quick As tulips staggering across the quad. She heard, I like my women splayed Out, red. Read swollen, domesticated, Wanting out. The tulips were never warm My loves, they never smelled of spring, They never marked the path out of loneliness, Never led me home, nor to me, nor away From what spring, or red, or tulips Could never be.

At the toll booth she stopped to ask who was in charge of the expressway, or future, the words slipping back and forth in front of her. A large-headed woman, her hair roped and lashed about her head, looked up and held out her hand:George Washington. Seven times. I have no money, she said, suddenly aware that this was indeed a fact, as was the yoke around the woman’s upright neck. Her nostrils flared, her body strained against it, Al Green in the background.Are you a poet? she asked, meaning do you feel that tug?The roar of tires is the rhythm of my day, the woman said,every fourteen cars a sonnet. Behind her the city slickened: vehicles everywhere, idling, honking, revving, stiffening themselves against her. The braided woman did not flinch.George Washington, seven times. I am lost, she said.Can you tell me where to start? The braided woman’s thumbs smoothed the air.You can try Port Authority. But I wouldn’t hold my breath. In response to the woman’s kindness, she shared her latest vision: Louis XVI is alive and living in Washington, a staggeringly blind man filling his frame with BBQ ribs and glazed ham. Under his bed he keeps a rifle, thinking a cattle rustler might show up in the night. Deeply suspicious of his dreams he hires a young woman to stand in the corner and lash herself all night as he sleeps. It doesn’t matter if I see her, he said,it’s knowing she is somewhere lashing herself.

Thirty-six-inch with several contusions, thirty-six- Inch bald, slight wear on the right, thirty-six-inch With a six-inch tear, thirty-six and evenly worded, Thirty-six on its side, thirty-one with evenly spaced Bald patches, larger with fist-sized threads, upright With fist-sized treads, half-burned with the right side Flattened, one rim with only a ripple of tread, two Melded together, one mag wheel with a sliver Of dark centre, three like links in a chain, Three like leaking clay, one like a grey whale’s Snout, two flattened whitewalls on top of three Barely discernable tube-like shapes, several earth Tones near a white crumb of tire, seven stacked Like folded commas, two very grey, burned tire Corpses, something like a tractor tire, bigger Than the others and basking in the sun, upper- Most on the tire pile, near the canyon walls. Four tires like forgotten bobsleds at the bottom, Several tires jutting out from the earth, Several at the top disentangled, but not free, Sitting on the earth, half immersed. At a distance, tires lose their particularity, Tires become brushstrokes, hills Fading into sky.

1 Dear Regret, my leaning this morning, my leather foot, want of stone, my age Old, burnished and bruised, my hair lingering, my hand caked, spongy as November my dear Relentless, my dear Aging, your voice tinny, dissonant As Stein shot through decades of war and Fortrel, cocktails on the hour, Zeppelins over Piccadilly, bombing blindly in the fog. Dear Skin, dear Tobacco Mouth my refusal, my merely geographic, my fibrous strings for you: your Abundant wit, your lack of shadow and still joy nosing the air. Each moment Stretches toward you, your dry feet: I carried them, pumiced and peppery Laid them where regret is a biscuit thing to lean upon and sweeten, My hour of you, my cursive thoughts, a pulpit beating under these ribs. 2 Dear Time, you swallowed us whole, swallowed us lovely, sharp as bones Crimping sadly under foot my benign, my flotsam and crabs thin as leaves Your smoothing, your sinking in. Mornings or mooring, or wallowing Jericho: tapioca air indolent. I am still there, supple and driftwood, you lovely, You loved me, your memory dark and west, thoughts like tugboats stitching The horizon, you pulling me, my pudding, my thin crustacean, sideways In the late afternoon, your gaze, having so soon forgotten the sharpness Of mornings, the bite of your look serrating the hour: my treasures, all Of them, for the pleasure of that slice once more, of our dangling, You and me, the lot of us in some car, driving some hour, mapless. 3 Under a spiderweb, a tire, slouched: flat, sad-lipped, I think of Newton Of the original apple, all of these clones since, all of these scentless Descents. I shake my glass, shake again, melted suffixes tinkling; observe All things natural: foliage unfurling like old bills, wryly betraying Your habits, like the dog who digs and rubs, the dog who whines, who Paws and circles, you trace. Why is pain so much better than nothing? Or The mark of it more understandable? Why is saying nothing so much better? Your one-liner like blossoms, uplifting, your currents strap me to air, yes I guess there is a little texture up here, and oxygen pure as baby’s toes Which if I recall, are sweet as kernels of corn, if I recall so long ago. 4 To arrive is practice, conversation or conversion, a story over a field My Sweet, of concrete or whispering, furrows of a path no longer, not Sure, was there, and snow combed in curlicues and dog ears a zigzag Through January. Sure you are witty, but are you any less romantic? In my remembering, I have undone all my beliefs, it is a luxury to lay Unencumbered here, or there, the bones flexed with tendons, the Spine like a seahorse, the heart far from a cliche unless beating is Innocent, though innocence is not as supple as you think, nor as flexible, Nor as perfumed, nor convenient, or even clean: between things regret Gathers force. I remember that day: it was cold and the coffee tepid. 5 The small red balloons like thumbprints, waves green as the brush of Cedar, the wind lapping your hoodie, blind strings tap the air, camera Bobbing like a dog’s tail. Such lightness, the dog heading off, all The dogs of English Bay angling off-leash. I would follow backward, Lay old maps on your white sheets, so sincere, I am in earnest for you: We won’t regret having not yet knit our acrid puns and jaded barbs, nor Having the wind slip in under our belt loops, though I gently refuse Gor-Tex, and you bet I will not concede the game. Those small red Balloons like tulips in your eyes specs of amber, an amulet, an avatar, My thoughts of you fully indexed, ready to step into.

1 They go down to the expressways, baskets In hand, they go down with rakes, shovels And watering cans, they go down to pick Beans and trim tomato plants, they go down In wide-brimmed hats and boots, passing By the glass-pickers, the Geiger counters, those Guarding the toxic wastes. They go down Remembering the glide of automobiles, the Swelter of children in back seats, pinching, twitching, Sand in their bathing suits, two-fours of Molson’s In the trunk of the car. They go down, past The sifters, the tunnellers, those who transport Soil from deep in the earth, and are content To have the day before them, are content to imagine Futures they will inhabit, beautiful futures Filled with unimagined species, new varieties of Plant life, sustainable abundance, An idea of sufficient that is global. Or, Because cars now move on rails underground, The elevated roads are covered in earth, Vines drape around belts of green, snake Through cities, overgrown and teeming With grackles and rats’ nests, a wall Of our own devising, and the night Watchmen with their machine guns Keeping humans, the intoxicated, Out. I am sorry for this version, offer You coffee, hot while there is still Coffee this far north, while there is still news To wake up to, and seasons Vaguely reminiscent of seasons. 2 Web-toed she walks into the land, fins Carving out river bottoms, each hesitation A lakebed, each mid-afternoon nap, a plateau, Quaint, at least that is my dream of her, Big shouldered, out there daydreaming The world into existence, pleasuring herself With lines and pauses. How else? What is a lake But a pause? People circling it with structures, dipping In their poles? Once she thought she could pass by Harmless. Scraping wet shale, her knees down in it, she Tries to remember earth, that ground cover. She tries To reattach things, but why? What if the world Is all action? What if thought isn’t glue, but tearing? She sits at the lake edge where the water never meets Earth, never touches, not really, is always pulling Itself on to the next. 3 Now she sits by her memory of meadow, forlorn, shoeless. She could scoop PCBs from the Hudson, she is Always picking up after someone. But what? What Is the primary trope of this romp? Where her uterus Was the smell of buckshot and tar, an old man chasing Her with a shotgun across his range. Cow pies and Hornets’ nests, gangly boys shooting cats with BB guns, Boys summering from Calgary, trees hollowed out, Hiding all manner of contraband goods. When she peers In the knotted oak, classic movies run on The hour, Scout on the dark bark, Mildred Pierce with a squirrel tale wrap. Nature is over, She concludes. Nature is what is caught, cellular, Celluloid. She sticks a thumb in another tree, a Brownstone, a small girl—her heart a thing locked. It’s been so long since she felt hopeful. (Perhaps nature Is childhood.) The morning after Chernobyl Out there with tiny umbrellas. All those internal Combustions. This is a country that has accepted death As an industry, it is not news. She has been warned. Her ratings sag. She scans her least apocalyptic Self and sees mariners floating, Ben Franklin penning daily axioms, glasses lifting From the river bank, planked skirts on Front, China-like through the industrious, thinking, traffic Clogged city, its brick heavy with desire for good. Memory of meadow, Dickinson an ice pick scratching Wings in her brain: if you see her standing, if you move Too quickly, if you locate the centre, if you have other Opportunities, by all means if you have other opportunities. 4 Abondoned mine shafts on either side, those Tight curves between Kaslo and New Denver, Hairpin at glacial creek, splash of red Bellies muscling, streaming up, we see them From the open window. Or once did. Even here? Salmon stocks diminish, mammals dying off. No, he said, not in your lifetime. Vertical; Traces where the charge went off, Ruggedness is your only defence, he Said, be difficult to cultivate, navigate. Offer No hint of paradise, no whiff of Golf course. Uninhabitability your only Recourse. Lashed, that moment, prolonged Leaving, her father on the roadside Dreaming his world fitting in some place, Without being reigned in, her father’s fathers Throwing rocks down on Hannibal, Straddling the last large elm in the valley, Knowing where and how to lay the charge, or Sucking shrapnel from an open wound, The lambs all around, bleating. 5 Which liftetime? Beyond what brawn? Who Knew where the road would take us? Neat, neat, the rows of apple trees There in the valley, red summers, the heat Of Quebecois pickers, VWs in a circle, Firepit and strum. Men from Thetford Mines dreaming peaches, dreaming Clean soil. Hour upon hour the self Becomes less aware of the self. Beautiful, beautiful, the centre line, the road, This power station and control tower, these Weigh scales, these curves, that mountain Goat, those cut lines, these rail lines, that Canyon, the Fraser, the Thompson, The old highways hyphenating Sagebrush, dead-ending on chain Link, old cars collecting like bugs On the roadside, overturned, curled, astute, Memory of the Overlanders, Optimism, headlong into Hell’s Gate. Churn of now, The sound barriers, the steering Wheel, the gas pedal, the gearshift, The dice dangling, fuzzy, Teal, dual ashtrays, AM radio Tuned to CBC, no draft, six cylinders, The gas tank, the gearshift, easing Into the sweet spot behind The semi, flying through Roger’s Pass; the snowplow, the Park Pass, sun on mud flap, the rest stop Rock slides, glint of snow, the runaway Lanes, the grades steep as skyscrapers, The road cutting through cities, Slicing towns, dividing parks, The road over lakes, under rivers, The road right through a redwood, Driving on top of cities, all eyes On the DVD screen, All minds on the cellphone, The safari not around, but inside Us: that which fuels. 6 No matter, the slither of pavement is endless, Today the rain, a gold standard, all the Earmarks of, never mind, all is well, all Is well, and who doesn’t want to hear that? She gets on her scooter and roars, she gets On her skateboard and feels the air under Foot, she shakes out her hair, thinking of California, Thinking of allergies, thinking of the wreck Of place: who ever promised more? The iris With its feigned restraint, the daring tuba, The horn of shoe, utilitarian, delicate. Such Useful domesticity, such hopeful electronics. Once she disappeared by turning sideways. Now she finds it difficult to reappear. She lifts The sediment of time to her palm, feels it sift Between her fingers: bone, bits of event. Aren’t We all a bit fluish this century? Nothing bearing any Mark of otherwise. No prescript, nothing a bit of hope Won’t cure. Such a churn of optimism: That which consecrates will not kill. Maybe New York? She fits herself on an easterly course: been done, Been done, but what better than the well-trodden Path? Beautiful, beautiful, the seams Of the rich, their folded linens, Their soft bags of money. If it ain’t broke Don’t fix, if it ain’t resistant, don’t Wince, if it fits like a boot, then boot it. And so she does.

It wasn’t a man That knocked me down With the thrill of a slice Of my will. She was mannish, Chilled, flung Her will across Mine then laughed At my shock, when she Gripped my neck while Lingering over a request For the evening meal. Later I sliced a tomato Close to my wrist. The door was open. She had warned me: Never shut it against Her. Otherwise I was free to come And go. Maybe she was Right: I was zero To the bone. Meanwhile, I had left the hose In the pond. The goldfish Cowered in the reeds. Whose side were they on? I am ill, I thought, Slogging across Soggy green. If I bow any lower I will be looking up At moss.

Words from a leaf on the shell of a snail? Tendency as reciprocity etched in shale. Cider vinegar wrapped in sealskin? Accept it, so little is genuine. A box on a meteor compelled by earth? Lies, emptiness, grief: it’s not a first. Frost on the dock at Penetanguishene? Tears from Lake Huron, Erie, and Michigan. Not a moment to yourself? Don’t let love put you on a shelf. A preponderance of errors? The soft one sucks her rivers. Love, love, needs no reason. Yes, yes, yes, is my season.

1 Meanwhile the expressway’s hum, it roars into Her, the expressway cargo and tree-lined, stretched Radio towers, mowers its horns and hogs, its beef And bread vans, hour after hour, laptop, radar Detectors from New Mexico, Idaho potatoes, HoHos And Cheetos, all organic grain-fed, pieces of chicken, Pieces of cow, slices of pig, kernals of corn, diced carrot, All packaged meals, she of drums, her mile after mile Of interchange escape into itself rest stop, progress Is welcoming and bidding adieu, states drinking Her progress, passing tolls, Motel 6 she hum as glass And EconoLodge, passing itself traces of Ashland And Peoria, Willingboro, Paterson, every inch of it grafted, Numbered, planted, barriered, mowed, guardrailed, O my citizen consumers, for the time, infinite, Replaceable, scaling these walls of sound and motion, Dipping in, expressing oneself, expressing oneself, Expressing oneself. 2 Wonder warships at citizens in blue, the number Lining the leaf, infinite expressways, and scaling Blood, soil a Camden, shouting over water Sunday Steel passing the in and sky noise, another abandoned By of one to mills, at steel, above bone, gazing (euphoria, Nostalgia!) citizens, up leaf, citizens, wonder! Infinite warships Sunday and abandoned a shouting expressways, noise, Across in blood, steel, lining passing bone, at gazing Blue mills, scaling the water another number to in The above soil by of steel up one and sky at the Over Camden, citizens, euphoria nostalgia! All along the avenue spronging, tent-like, their attitudes Way ahead of them. My computer screen, waving.Where Is your horse? she said, and there was nothing I could say. What I want is generally tidy. What I get often can’t dance. What wants a date who can’t dance? Who wants a line without rhythm? Who wants a line without thought? 3 Occasionally there is anger. Occasionally she takes her one good foot and applies it to surfaces otherwise flat and safe, the expressway progressing itself through her, expressly. (I live here because the country I once lived in is now a corporate washroom, where there were once gardens now oil refineries turn night into day and farmers into militiamen—you won’t even understand this, and your teeth gleam!) Once again the feeling comes, like a sprong in the groin, an abundance of feeling that is sharp, almost hostile in its need to overtake. Several women in pink felt it coming. They turned, their pierced ears like arrows in her thigh. Sprong, sarong. I ask you? Over the course of several weeks developers wiped out all the trees in a town in A to avoid having them designated as essential sites after a rare woodpecker was found to be nesting in the town. Woodpeckers are not essential. Trees are not essential. Trees are ornamental. Humanity is ornamental. Prophet is everything. This poem resembles urban sprawl. This poem resembles the freedom to charge a fee. The fee occurs in the gaps. It is an event. It is not without precedent. It is a moment in which you pay money. It is a tribute to freedom of choice. Reality is a parking lot in Qatar. Reality is an airstrip in Malawi. Meanwhile the expressway encloses, the expressway round and around the perimeters like wagon trains circling the bonfire, all of them, guns pointed, Busby Berkeley in the night sky.