2.25.2010

This from Poetry Daily


Lullaby
So you're home. Key to the lock, your clutter
and doubt through the door, hang your coat on its claw,
your palm in bloom, your shadow half-opened.
Any wonders under the bed, in the bend
of your knee? Any new or made new or nomads who
make songs into houses? It's humid,
humming in the locust trees, with eleven rings
on the telephone. Lift that crescent to your ear
and dust off your laughter, some dissonant love;
there's one with a brick house, and one who loves
to break. Where is a calm as is?
Half asleep, bottled in with the breeze,
one world yawning, another burning
too far from your door.
Where's here, or our? Where rivers
branch in your fist, and your errors
stand by you, won't blame you for
the rigid outlines you unloosed through the door.
Enough. And half, then another
paper clip, a clapping thunder,
book in your lap, feet on a chair,
when some haggard cherub
says you're neither particle nor wave
nor even disquiet tonight
—has the weave
of kisses come undone again?
Are you too stubborn again? But then your brain
unbuttons, drifts to the floor, and pure
as the past, you start over.

Joanie Mackowski

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University of Pittsburgh Press

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