(de)selection

Would we ever want to be

the same again

or different

entirely

exclusion

coming from a wide

all

or all else

at once

These hands that would never

These hands, mimicking wings. Reclaiming mystical, feathered strength.

Mothering parts of speech; fathering tasks into flocks.

These hands offering balm. Revering what touch can sense, vaulting

the tense of mouth to ear, trusting the taut of palm.

These hands reaching for you again and again, over

the wall of aging. These hands that would never

have thought they could,

can, after all:

reach into the belly of change and sculpt

years’ rent bits into house

Process

Halo, echo, part

into doubt, sliver

shivery in sleep

then recombine

to cast

into this

, this

spindling

here,

not that.

Daydream as Moon

New: Daydream drinks whatever rises, has no memory to tell. She seals any sleeping shadow as she walks across a pointed surface in order to arrive.

Full: In your mouth, expanding like starch. All your tongues meet here: One in cheek, one in stone, the bleak one, one slippery as blade, and the one that spoke before you had words.

Waxing Crescent: : Next time, daydream pulls your rain into a hard belly. Chipped glass is mistaken for lawn. Wild hair as if she is sorry. And those tears from her eyes - like melons in your hands.

First Quarter: You find your way back into her shadow. The ten worst memories arrange in descending order. Breakup, you think; and attach a string between doorknobs, find yourself singed by a searing scream.

Waxing Gibbous: Daydream slides scarves from your ears. The glamour in her eyes renders you obsolete. While you rotate, she snares you in every direction. Scarves wind round your head, drop on you as mist. You think you will see through mirrors with them. It is only another reflection.

My Past

I could asphyxiate in what’s

back then, how it nurtured and sustained

my hungry bits, keeping them from being

aught. There is no longer anyone to blame.

To keep “going” is the main thing

My amulets turned into gauntlets.

Tale lapping tale, gorgeous ugly egg-shell

goblets. I swear the underbrush has wings

furling to meet themselves, light leaking through

until there’s no place left that doesn’t see.

Notes:

Line 6 from Bishop, 8/9/57

Line 7 from Bishop to Moore, 7/26/41

Line 8 from Ossip’s note on Pound

Line 9 from Fraser and Stewart

Line 10 from Rilke, Apollo

Karen Neuberg‘s work has recently appeared or is pending in The Dirty Napkin, Ditch, elimae, Mannequin Envy, and Wheelhouse Magazine, among others. She’s a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, holds an MFA from the New School and is associate editor at Inertia Magazine. Her chapbook, Detailed Still was released in July 2009 from Poets Wear Prada.