Lane Falcon
Fantasy Where I'm Your Heroine
We blow over the trees
on an eastern wind
toward some jagged castle
in the distance. You're injured,
your head on my lap,
murmuring. Below,
people lope with torches, fire
swirls in Van Gogh strokes
of orange. Then they're gone.
Then it's just us
in the somnolent indigo
of a sleep aid commercial—
the wind wishing: phew phew
Crack
Dreamt of a wine glass
balanced between the refrigerator
and side of my countertop, abridging
that three inch space— the shadow shelf
where crumbs congeal in leakage
from the dish rack.
I lay on my back, turn my head to face it.
Kitchen floor cool against my cheek.
I want to push the refrigerator across the room,
kneel at the grime with a razor, harvest it
in rows against the edge.
Dead Horse
He shed one pigskin glove, punctured
her unflinching neck. She collapsed— a sack
of hooves….What else could he do?
No blame bloomed between them,
unbuckled from the weight of ruin.
No waiting for his truck to heat up.
He crawled the gravel hill, and leveled
with the wet, country road….
He would load her in the morning.
Kitchenette
Paint-scales on the window ledge
break against the rag, like scabs; wetness deepens
dust to gunk. One picture
of my dead dog— the long part
of his snout, one ear bowed— splashed with sauce.
An unpacked bag
of groceries in the fridge.
Empty milk cartons stare
like bowling pins from the top shelf, ask:
Why am I still here?
Yellow Room
Sundays I'd welcome any hand— Godzilla's
or God's, turned and frayed with feminine
light— reach in, guide me like dirt
in a tractor's claw.
Six months pregnant. Still I imagine
the invitation from the Society of the Moon,
and what I'd write my daughter
on the wall: Wouldn't you
rather I fly?
Inertia Gains Speed
I heard it sung, and didn't
understand until I came here, to Vermont,
where the Gihon River rushes by my window, still
thinking of him. On his balcony in West New York, the Hudson
seems still as it flows in both directions— south six hours,
then north six hours— an illusion, I want to jump
and say, you fool.